Coup D'IaHB: Walk Beside Me
by Darkchilde
Summary: Otherwise known as the "Caitie's Home Life SUCKS" series!
1. Author's Note

Once upon a time, there was a writer named Darkchilde. Now, Darkchilde loved to write about her favorite characters and couples, and she did so as OFTEN as possible. One of these couples she so loved was a pair of social misfits from Disney's "In a Heartbeat", Caitie Roth and Jamie Waite. 

Since she loved them so much, she decided to write a story about them, a story that she named "Walk Me Home". However, she had no idea that when writing this story, she would be starting off a story arc that would spawn nearly a dozen stories and create characters that have shown up, not only in her work, but in other writer's stories as well. 

Okay, I'm going to stop referring to myself in the third person now. I promise. Anyway, when I first started this amazingly long epic of a story arc, I fully intended to maybe write a sequel or two. I didn't have a SINGLE plan to expand it beyond that. But...the muse grabbed a hold of me, and I found myself writing more and more stories, expanding more and more on the characters I had created and "borrowed" from the TV show. 

In the pages of these stories, I created the Waite family, which consist of some of the characters I'm most proud of: Genevieve, Jamie's wacky but loving mother, who lends her ear to all of her children's problems; Jazz and Crimson, the oldest two of Jamie's four younger sisters, who, in their radically different ways, help keep both Jamie and Caitie grounded, and Molly and most especially Sami, the youngest of the two, who add aspects of innocence and humor to the story, I like to think. I espically enjoy writing about the bound between Sami and Jamie, because it's one of the deeper and realistic ones I've ever managed to create. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my stories. I know I enjoy writing the. 

Walk Beside Me (more commonly know as Caitie's Home Life SUCKS!) consists of, thus far 9 stories: Walk Me Home, Cold Morning, Family Ties, Much Ado About Nothing, For All This We Give Thanks, Where Are You Christmas, Broken, Readjustments and Coming Home, along with one outtake--Scribbles.

So, anyway, enjoy reading, and VIVA LA REVOLUTION! 


	2. Walk Me Home

  
  
After seeing "A Night To Remember" for like, the third time, I got to wondering what happened between Catie and Jamie after the show ended? So I got to thinking about it (in the middle of class no less!), and this is what I came up with. Now, I don't know how good this is, but I thought that I would send it out anyway, let all of you decide. IF enough of you ask for one, I've left this story wide open for a sequel (which is something that I love to do, if you've ever seen any of my writing for any other genre.) So, if you want more, write in and tell me! I love feedback! :) (But when feed backing, remember, I've only been watching the show for a little while, I don't know if I got the characters right, and I don't know anything about their pasts.)  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, all...Disney's? Heartbeat Inc? Something like that. In fact, I don't think that I own anything in this story, except for the story itself. (Though, if some one wants to GIVE me Christopher Ralph, you know, I'll be happy. :) )   
  
Walk Me Home   
  
Hospitals have a certain smell to them. All the anti-bacteria, orange scented cleaners and high powered deodorizers mixed with constant human suffering, blood and tears, swirled together to create a scent that was unique to a hospital. Most of the time, the only people who noticed the odd smell were people that spent a lot of time in hospitals.   
  
Jamie Waite spent a lot of times in hospitals. Even before he had been coerced into joining the squad, he'd been in this place more often then he would like to remember. The white cement of the wall pushed against his back, cold and solid and unyielding. The chill of the stone crept through his leather jacket and sent a shiver down his spine.  
  
He drew his knees up closer to his chest, his chin resting lightly on his kneecaps. A tear slipped down his cheek. He reached up a hand to wipe it away, but a softer hand beat him to it. Startled, he jumped, and found himself face to face with Catie Roth, her dark hair still covered by her glittering gold chain wig.   
  
"Jamie…" She whispered softly, her fingers lingering on his cheek for a minute. Jamie let a small smile lift his lips, but he laid his head back against the wall, turning his face away from his friend's concerned expression. He heard Catie sigh softly, then felt her shoulder brush against his as she sat down beside him, just close enough for their shoulders to whisper against each other.   
  
Jamie kept his eyes trained on the wall in front of him, his slightly quivering lips and glistening eyes the only outwardly sign of his inner torment. Catie looked at her friend out of the corner of her eye, and sighed softly, reaching out to touch the sleeve of his jacket.   
  
He jumped slightly, then turned his deep brown eyes on her, the question plain in his eyes. Catie bite her lip, and tightened her grip on the leather of his jacket, holding his gaze for a second before speaking.   
  
"It wasn't your fault." She whispered to him, wishing that he would understand that none of this was his fault. Their was nothing in the world that he could have done to stop Kenny. Kenny was gonna do what Kenny was gonna do, and nothing that anyone could have said or done would have stopped him. Jamie couldn't continue to blame himself because Kenny choose to be an idiot. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair to Jamie.   
  
"How do you know?" Jamie asked, as if somehow reading her thoughts. "How do you that their wasn't something...anything I could have done to keep him off that ladder? I should have...I should have done something..."   
  
Catie swallowed hard, and slowly slipped her hand down from his wrist and wrapped her long fingers around his, pressing slightly. Jamie surprised her by turning his palm upward to catch her hand, and then tangling their fingers together, squeezing them gently. She let a small smile touch her lips, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, trying to psychically send him all the strength that she could.   
  
Jamie leaned his head against her hair, letting the soft strands caress his cheeks. He swallowed hard again, and drew in a deep breath. The scent of her hair was mixed with air he breathed, and he let out his breath with a silent sigh.   
  
Catie's hair smelled like sugar and spice and roses and rain, all mixed together with a gentle, biting scent that was uniquely her. The smell was surprisingly pleasing, at least to him. Most people, he decided, would think that it was too aggressive, too abrasive, too harsh, to be soothing. But he liked it, liked the way that it made him feel, liked the way it tickled his nose just right. It reminded him of...  
  
Jamie forced the thoughts out of his head, focusing back on Kenny, his friend Kenny, lying in a hospital bed, with a concussion and broken leg, because Jamie couldn't back down from a challenge. He unconsciously tightened his grip on Catie's hand, drawing strength from the contact with her smooth skin.   
  
"Jamie?" Her voice was slightly muffled by his jacket, but he heard her clearly enough.   
  
"Yeah?" He whispered, his voice husky and rough, even to his ears.   
  
"I hate to do this...but I gotta go...my parents are already gonna kill me." Catie told him, making no move to rise from her position next to him. Jamie's eyes flickered to the clock, and he was shocked to see that it read two thirty seven a.m.   
  
Blinking, he looked at it again, but the numbers stayed the same. Sighing, he stood up, letting go of her hand as he did so. Jamie extended his hand down to her, and she took it gladly, letting him help her to her feet.   
  
"Come on. I'll...walk you home." He told her, keeping a hold of her hand and moving toward the door.   
  
"I'm a big girl Jamie, I can get there by myself." She informed him, lifting both of her eyebrows. Jamie made a face at her, and tugged on her hand, still refusing to drop it.   
  
"It's two in the morning on Halloween, Catie. Think about that." Jamie reminded her, moving toward the glowing red exit sign.   
  
"So you're gonna walk me home to scare away all the ghouls?" Catie remarked, a smirk in her voice.   
  
"I'm gonna try." He informed her softly, all teasing gone from his voice.   
  
"Oh." Catie picked up on his tone, and quieted down, following Jamie out of the hospital and out into the bitingly cool air of the dark night.   
  
A full moon shone down on them from above, making everything glitter and glow in the silvery light. The stars sparkled in the heavens, glowing like diamonds in the black velvet of the sky. Jamie and Catie began to walk in the direction of her house, neither one of them speaking, but not breaking contact with one another either.   
  
The air was strangely peaceful as they walked along, each lost in their own thoughts. The streets were empty of people, even the mischief makers having already sought out their beds. Jamie's heavy boots thumped heavily on the sidewalk, and Catie's long black and gold skirt shuffled in time to the rhythm of his shoes.   
  
They hadn't said a word to each other by the time that they reached the end of Catie's driveway. Her eyes, long since adjusted to the darkness of the night, peered up the driveway, trying to make out if her parent's car was in the driveway. It wasn't.   
  
"Well, looks like they haven't gotten back from their little foray yet." She muttered sourly under her breath, dropping Jamie's hand to walk up the driveway. She was surprised when Jamie moved as well, keeping pace with her as she walked to the door.   
  
"And you are doing...what?" She asked, stopping half-way up her driveway to cross her arms over her chest and look at him.  
  
"Walking you to the door. I hear it's what all gentlemen do." Jamie shot back, a grin appearing on his face for the first time since Kenny's accident.   
  
"Not like you would know." Catie remarked ideally, a grin to match his own pulling at her lips.   
  
"Your parents are gone?" Jamie wanted to know, noting the lack of cars in the driveway.  
  
"Probably off getting smashed somewhere." The words were out before she realized it, and Catie blushed slightly, cursing her tongue. But Jamie didn't look surprised, just pulling his mouth down into a slight frown.  
  
"Your parents do that often?" He asked softly, reaching up to run a nervous hand through his jet black hair.   
  
Catie slowly nodded. Something suddenly occurred to her at that point; in all the time that she and Jamie had been friends, she didn't think she had ever seen his parents. Actually, she didn't know anything about his family at all. It wasn't something that they really talked about much.  
  
"You...uh...wanna come in for a while?" She asked him, without thinking. Jamie looked at her in surprise, his eyebrows taking an excursion into his hairline. Catie smirked sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Not like that. I just don't...don't feel like being alone tonight." Belatedly, she realized that that probably hadn't sounded much better. "I mean..."  
  
"I know what ya mean. And...thanks." Jamie whispered, stepping up onto the bottom step. She stepped up as well, going ahead of him to make sure that the door was unlocked. It was, and she sighed loudly.  
  
"My parents are going to get us robbed one day." She remarked over her shoulder, pushing the door in and flipping on the light. Jamie followed her in, and looking around in interest. The hallway was done in light brown, the walls and carpet complimenting each other perfectly. A mirror and several paintings hung on the wall, and a small, cherry wood table rounded out the hallway.   
  
"Nice." He told her, and she rolled her eyes.  
  
"My mother lives to decorate."   
  
"Really?" Jamie asked, looking at one of the pictures. He turned to face her, and smiled. Catie ignored the slight flutter in her stomach, and moved toward the living room. "Not what I expected from someone with a daughter like you."   
  
"Yeah well, me and my parents are completly different." Catie assured him, as he followed her into the living room. Sighing, she flopped down on the overstuffed brown couch, propping her feet up on the cherry wood coffee table, the match to the table in the foyer.   
  
Jamie sat down next to her, much more carefully. Catie grabbed the remote, sitting on the arm of the couch and flipped the TV on, looking over at Jamie out of the corner of her eye. He caught her looking and smirked at her, and she rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to the TV.   
  
Some cheesy black and white movie was currently blaring out of the TV, and Catie sighed, lifting the remote to flip the channel.   
  
"Hang on for a minute." Jamie asked, surprising her. Dropping the hand that held the remote, Catie looked blankly at him. "That's 'Psycho'."   
  
"Oh boy, the ORIGNAL slasher movie." Catie snorted, annoyed.   
  
"And what's wrong with slasher movies? It IS Halloween." Jamie reminded her, his eyes fixed on the screen.   
  
"Fine, but if I puke, it's your fault." She grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest and sinking back into the sofa.   
  
"Your kidding right? YOUR afraid of slasher-flicks?" Jamie laughed in disbelief.   
  
"So what if I am?" Catie asked defensivly.   
  
"Never pegged you for the type. I always figured you scared Val by making her watch them with you late at night or something." Jamie turned back to the TV screen.  
  
"Other way around." Catie told him, turning her eyes so that she was looking at his profile and not the screen.   
  
Jamie's attention snapped from whoever Norman Bates was hacking up on TV to her face. "Val--VAL--likes slasher movies?"   
  
"Oh yeah. The gorier the better is her motto." Catie shuddered, her face turning slightly white. "I still haven't forgiven her for making me watch 'The Excorist" with her."  
  
"Now that is a disturbed movie." Jamie said by way of agreement. "Now, wait a minute. If you don't like slasher stuff, what do you like? If you say chick flicks, IU'm never speaking to you again."   
  
"No, I don't like chick flicks. I like...I don't know. Movies with plot. Movies that aren't just mindless violence or ridculous, supposed "comedy"." Catie encased the word comdey in quotes with her fingers.   
  
"So I guess Van Dame and Jimmy Carry aren't your favorite actors?" Jamie asked her. Catie shook her head, her lips pulled down into a frown.   
  
"Not quite."   
  
"Well then, what's your favorite movie?" Jamie asked her.   
  
Catie twisted her lips to one side of her face, before sighing and saying "You'll laugh."   
  
"Why, what is it? "Pee Wee's Big Adventure"?"   
  
"Not." Catie snorted in disgust. Jamie lifted his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue. "It's "Casablanca", okay?"   
  
"Your joking." Jamie asked, his deep brown eyes wide.   
  
"No, I'm not. So what? I mean, what's yours? "Mortal Kombat"?" Catie demanded, slightly stung.  
  
"No, it's not "Mortal Kombat". It's "Rebel Without A Cause"."   
  
"Really?" Now it was Catie's turn to be surprised.   
  
"Yeah, I wanted to be James Dean when I was a kid." Jamie told her, laughing quitely.  
  
"That explains the jacket and the five o'clock shadow, I guess." Catie thought out loud.   
  
"Nah, I'm just to lazy to shave. Plus, ya know, makes me look..." Jamie trailed off, looking for the word.  
  
"Stupid?"  
  
"Well, I was actually thinking more along the lines of ruggad."   
  
"Ah."   
  
"What? You don't think I'm ruggadly handsome?" Jamie teased her, miming a hair flip. Catie lifted an eyebrow, and tilted her head to the left.   
  
"Well, I wouldn't go that far." She informed him, much to his amusement.   
  
"See, that's why I like hanging out with you. You never let anything like 'tact' or 'politness' get in the way of what you have to say." He told her, grinning brightly.  
  
"Well, ya know, I try," Catie nodded her head, a small smile hovering on her lips as she did so. A scream drew their attention back to the screen, and they both watched as Norman hacked the young woman in the shower up with a butcher knife.   
  
Catie cringed, and turned her face away. Jamie noticed, and grinned, reaching out to take her hand, for the third time that night. She clutched it tightly, trying not to look at the screen as the girl screamed. Jamie saw her again, and fought back a laugh. She really was scared, he told himself, scooting closer to her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him, so she could hide her face in his chest if she wanted to. Catie pressed her face into his jacket, and blocked her ears to the sound of the girl's death cries.   
  
Jamie wrapped his arms around her body and gave her a hug, unthinkingly. She reacted by snuggling deeper into his embrace. He chuckled lightly, stroking her back lightly, as the girl's blood ran down the drain.   
  
As soon as that part was over, Jamie poked the girl in his arms to let her know that it was safe to look again. However, she didn't move from his arms, and he looked down at her in surprise. Her eyes were shut, her long eyelashes just touching her cheek. The wig on her head was askew, and he reached up to take it off, letting her dark brown hair fall naturally around her face. Unable to stop himself, Jamie pushed a lock of it back, the silkly tresses sliding through his fingers.   
  
A wave of sudden contentment rolled over him, and leaned back against the couch, Catie still in his arms. Closing his eyes, he reveled in the feeling, letting it completely take him away, only for a minute.   
  
He was asleep in half a minute, Catie still cradled protectivly in his arms. 


	3. Cold Morning

Disclaimer: HEY! Guess what, there still not mine! *grin* This is a direct sequel from my VERY FIRST story, "Walk Me Home". Anybody remember that one!? LOL! I finally did, and I came up with an idea for a sequel. Now, I warn you know, this did NOT turn out the way that I originally intended it to. It's rated PG-13 for child abuse ( I was considering making it R, but I didn't want to scare ALL my readers off...), and I hope that you like my attempt at a sequel for Walk Me Home. It's not as light as the first one is, and I have an idea for a sequel to THIS, if people like it. :) Anyway, I've babbled enough, so MERRY CHRISTMAS and without further ado...

Cold Morning 

The sunlight streaming through the window woke Jamie Waite up. Blinking wearily, he put a hand up to his forehead, trying to clear the sleep induced sluggishness from his mind. As soon as his thoughts became more coherent, a stray thought smacked him upside the head. 

SOMETHING wasn't right. 

This wasn't his bedroom, because his bedroom didn't have this much sunlight in the morning. 

This wasn't his living room-with four little sisters, nothing ever stayed THIS neat in his house for very long. 

These two things added up in his mind, and realization dawned on him-this wasn't his house at all. 

Of course, that wasn't the REAL giveaway. The REAL giveaway was that, no matter how often he wished it differently, he never ever woke up with Catie Roth asleep on his chest. 

The young girl in question stirred in her sleep, snuggling her face deeper into his shirt, and tightening her hold on the lapels of his black leather jacket. Jamie attempted to move, but was afraid of waking her up-not only was he NOT sure what he was doing here, something told him that Catie wasn't much of a morning person. 

Blinking his eyes again, Jamie strained to see the clock setting on top of the mantel above the fireplace. Seven thirty five, it declared smugly. And judging by the sparkling sunlight streaming through the window, as cheerful as it could be, Jamie was beginning to think that no, it wasn't seven thirty five at night. 

That meant, of course, since he didn't remember being home at all last night, he hadn't BEEN home since yesterday. That meant he had stayed out all night. 

That meant that he was dead in the water as soon as he got home. 

"Oh God_" The distraught young man moaned out loud, leaning back against the couch and closing his eyes. "This can't be happening_." 

"Huh?" A soft, slightly muffled voice asked from his chest. 

Jamie opened his eyes and looked down, just as Catie sat up. However, since she wasn't LOOKING up, this resulted in her smacking the top of her head against Jamie's chin. "Ow!" 

"Yeah_" Jamie moaned, reaching to rub his chin. "I think you made me bite my tongue." 

"Oh sorry_JAMIE!? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!?" Catie squealed, jumping up out of Jamie's arms. Unfortunately, she seemed to have forgotten that they were on the couch, and misjudged the distance, landing with a solid thump on the floor.

Jamie jumped up from his seat on the couch, and offered her a hand up. "Are you okay?" 

"Fine. Now, what the heck are you DOING at my HOUSE at--" Catie's eyes danced to the clock on the mantle "Seven forty in the morning!?" 

"I've been thinking about that_" Jamie began, rubbing his chin, his dark eyes thoughtful.

"And you have concluded--what?!" Catie asked, pushing a lock of her long black hair behind her ear and glaring at her friend in annoyance. 

"Well, I haven't concluded ANYTHING except that I'm as good as dead when I get home." Jamie moaned, running his fingers through his black hair in annoyance. 

"YOUR dead?! I'm the one that let a guy sleep at my house--when my parents weren't home! I'm SO DEAD!" Catie shrieked, grabbing her hair and yanking. 

"Yeah, well, I didn't got HOME last night Catie--at least you managed to make it home! My mother probably thinks I'm dead in a ditch or something!" Jamie pointed out, pressing the heels of his hands against his forehead. 

Catie suddenly let go of her hair, and made a face, looking right at Jamie. "Is it just me, or are we arguing about who's going to be deader when their parents catch them?" 

Jamie dropped his hands from his face and looked at her, his eyes suddenly glinting in the morning sun. A slow smile pulled at his lips, and he tried to keep from chuckling out loud. 

"I think we could find something much better to argue about, don't you?" 

"Oh definitely." Catie started to laugh, and shook her head, her long black hair twisting around her face. 

"Only we would fight about something like that." Jamie concluded, smothering his own laughter with his hand. 

"I know. But I still think I'm deader!" Catie snickered. 

"I agree." A VERY un-amused sounding voice piped up and Jamie and Catie both froze. Since Catie was standing with her back to the door, she had to turn around to see who it was standing in the doorway, even though she could have recognized the voice and tone at fifty paces. 

"Umm...hi...Mom..." Catie didn't even bother to turn around. 

Jamie blinked owlishly at his first glance at Catie's mom. It was obvious to him that Catie must look a great deal like her mother, with the same dark hazel eyes and slightly wavy black hair. However, she lacked the good nature that he normally saw in Catie's eyes, and her mouth was drawn down into an unhappy frown, the wrinkled skin around her mouth confirming Jamie's suspicions that she grimaced often. 

The dark haired older woman stalked around in front of her daughter, who seemed loathed to move at that moment, and gave Jamie the once over. Obviously, she did not like what she saw, because her scowl seemed to deepen with every passing second. He fidgeted, suddenly very uncomfortable because of her cold eyes, and flicked his gaze to Catie, wondering what she thought about all of this.

What Catie thought about all of this was scrawled across her delicate features like a two year scribbles on a wall. Her eyes snapped with some kind of hidden anger, and her lips were curled into a less ferocious imitation of her mother's expression. However, Jamie had never seen her look so enraged, and he mentally winced, hoping that he was going to be able to get out of here with his skin intact. 

"Caitlin. Would you MIND...explaining...what this young...man, is doing here, at eight in the morning?" Catie's mother requested, her eyes making the comment into a demand.

"Yes, I would mind." Catie snapped, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at her mother, her dark eyes snapping. 

"Umm...maybe I should...go?" Jamie thought out loud, swallowing and beginning to move toward the door. 

"Something's telling me that that is the most intelligent thing you've ever done." Catie's mother snapped, her eyes flashing. Jamie blinked, but began to move toward the door again, shocked by the woman's nasty attitude. 

`Of course...if I had just walked in to find MY daughter with a guy that looked like a hoodlum at eight o'clock in the morning after not having been home all night, I probably wouldn't be real thrilled either.' Jamie thought to himself, half way to the door before Catie's voice dragged him bodily out of his thoughts.

"How DARE you?! You don't even KNOW Jamie, and your already putting him down! You are such a--" Catie didn't finish her statement, because her mother's hand smacking across her cheek cut her off. 

Jamie spun around as soon as he heard flesh met flesh, and stared in shook as Catie put her hand up to her rapidly reddening cheek. That had not been the kind of hit a normally mother would bestow up their mouthy children to get them to be quiet and to get their attention. No, that had been a smack to hurt, to hurt badly. He gaped at the spot on Catie's cheek, even as she put her hand up over it to hide it from his eyes.

"Shut up you little slut! How DARE you talk back to me, after dragging home this--" Catie's mother pointed a long, blood red nail at Jamie "piece of white trash, and doing who knows what with him all night long?!" 

"If you'd bothered to come home last night..." Catie started, but was cut off again by her mother's hand. This time, the woman put real force behind it, and Catie hit the floor with a thump. 

That was, Jamie reflected even as he moved forward to help Catie off the floor, the straw that was going to break the camel's back. Using ever ounce of will power he had ever had, Jamie bite back every snarling comment that he wanted to spit at the older woman, and focused solely on Catie. 

He slipped his hands underneath her arms and lifted her to her feet, as easily as if she was his littlest sister. She wavered on her feet for a moment, then steadied herself on his offered arm, her fingers biting into his flesh, even through his thick leather jacket. 

"You think that's bad, you little whore, you just wait until your father gets home!" Catie's mother screamed at the girl, her eyes clouding over slightly. Catie winced, but steeled herself, throwing her head back and straightening her shoulders.

"So where is Daddy? Out sleeping with another girl my age?" The brunette snarled, with real venom. 

"You little..." Catie's mother started forward, her murder in her eyes, and Jamie reacted. Grasping Catie's slender arm firmly in his hand, he yanked the girl behind him, putting him between the raging woman and her daughter. 

He glared down at the small woman from his superior height, his eyes flashing out a warning. No matter how cruel Catie's mother was, she wasn't stupid, and she recognized the promise in Jamie's dark eyes. `You want her, you get through me'. 

The older woman glared up at him for a second, still looking like she had been sucking on a lemon for three years. But she didn't move, and Jamie took that as a good sign. 

With a final glare, Jamie turned and gently pushed Catie toward the door. The girl stumbled slightly, but followed his insistent prodding, her feet slapping against the floor dully, like she was in shock. He winced, hoping that she wasn't REALLY in shock--he didn't think he wanted to go BACK to the hospital after having just come from their. 

The dark haired youth heaved a sigh of relief when he pushed Catie out of her house into the sunlight. He'd had no idea that her home life was that bad! She had insinuated once or twice that her home life was no picnic, but Lord help him, he had never realized...

Jamie shook it off, focusing instead on getting Catie somewhere where she was safe, and he could figure out where to go from there. The most logical place, he realized, was probably his house, even though he was going to have one HECK of a time explaining his whereabouts last night. But right now, that didn't matter. Right now, Catie was the only thing that mattered. 

*****

Melissa Matthews yawned as she walked out the front door, rubbing her face tiredly. This was the last time she stayed up past midnight talking to Miranda on the phone about the people at school. Really. 

The young blonde girl shuffled out toward the mailbox, her terry cloth robe swirling out behind her, and her Labrador puppy chasing after the leaves in the yard. Reaching the mailbox, Melissa opened it and pulled out the mail, blinking rapidly to try and clear her sleep induced blurry vision. 

She happened to look up when she heard the door next door slam shut, and her vision cleared up RAPIDLY. Walking out of the Roth's house was a red faced Catie, the weird Goth girl that, truth be told, terrified Mel, followed by...Jamie Waite?! Melissa gaped, and tried not to drool on her house shoes. 

What in the world was Jamie doing at Catie's house at...what was it, eight in the morning? No way had he just gotten up and come over...his clothes looked to rumpled, and his hair was sticking up, and hadn't Catie been wearing that the other day? 

"Oh my God..." Melissa muttered to herself, her blue eyes twinkling. Wait until she told Miranda that Jamie Waite had spent the ENTIRE night at Catie Roth's house...

*****

Catie had been quiet almost the entire walk to Jamie's house, and he couldn't tell if it was because she was in shock, ashamed, or just didn't know what to say. Either way he needed to get her to talk about what had happened, to find out how bad it truly was at home for her.

"Catie?" Jamie asked, reaching out to put a gentle hand on her shoulder. 

"I'm okay." She whispered in a monotone, her eyes studying the ground.

"Catie...it's okay if your not." He whispered to her, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, and turning her to face him. "I mean...what just happened..."

"Wasn't that big a deal." Catie told him firmly, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. AS she did so, it brought more attention to the rapidly forming bruise on her pale skin, right below her eye and stretching across her cheek. 

"Wasn't that big of a deal?!" Jamie wanted to scream, but fought for and kept his cool. He put his hands firmly on her shoulders, and pulled her close to his body, so that he could look her directly in the eye. "You don't think what just happened to you was that big of a deal?" 

"It happens...well...not all the time, but it's never been that bad before." Catie tried to defend her mother's actions, knowing full good and well that Jamie wasn't buying a word of it. 

"Catie...you mother put a bruise the size of your fist on your cheek!" Jamie reminded her, lifting a hand to her face to carefully sweep a finger across her high cheek bone. 

"She didn't..." Catie tired to deny it, but cut herself off when she caught the look in Jamie's eyes. "Jamie...you can't..." She tried weakly, but this time it was Jamie who stopped her, pushing a finger to her lips. 

"Hush. Let's just...get to my house, okay? We'll talk about this later." Jamie swallowed hard, running his fingers through his dark hair 

Catie just nodded, and the two began silently walking again. 

******

Jamie swallowed hard, and reached for the knob of his front door. However, before his fingers could wrap around it, he jerked his hand back and made a face. Catie snickered, rolling her eyes. 

"How many times are you going to do that?" She teased him gently, her eyes sparkling. 

"I think about fifty. What am I up to?" Jamie joked. 

"29." 

"Well, 21 to go!" 

However, before Jamie got a chance to do his little "I don't want to open the door" dance again, the aforementioned door was thrown open and a smiling little girl with beautiful dark brown eyes and bright red hair beamed out at the duo.

"JAMIE! You's home!" She crowed, throwing herself at his knees. Catie blinked in surprise, but Jamie just chuckled, and swung the little girl up and flipped her over so that her hair nearly trailed on the ground. The child squealed, and flapped her hands at the ground, her giggles trilling through the air like silver bells.

"Umm...Jamie?" Catie asked, smiling at the antics of the child and her friend, trying to place who the girl could be.

"Oh, sorry, Catie." Jamie straightened the little girl up, holding her on one hip so that she was on the same eye level as Catie. Curious, the child peered at her like she was some kind of new bug. "Catie, this is my little sister Sami. Sami, this is my friend Catie."

"I didn't know you had a little sister." Catie told him, flashing the little girl a slight smile. At about this time, Sami noticed the bruise on her cheek, and crinkled her eyebrows. 

"What happened to you face?" She asked in her baby face, reaching out one little hand to point at the dark shadow on Catie's cheek. 

"Oh...I...nothing." Catie put her hand up over her cheek, surprised that the child had asked. However, this answer did not satisfy Sami, and she turned to her older brother, her mouth pulled into a frown. But before she could repeat her question, Jamie answered her.

"Catie just walked into a wall, baby girl. She's okay." That answer seemed to satisfy Sami, and she wiggled in her brother's arms, in an attempt to get down. Jamie understood, and put the child down, and she promptly ran off, her long hair flying. 

But before Jamie and Catie could get in the door, a tiny red haired woman with the same dark eyes as Jamie and Sami slammed into the room and filled the doorway with ninety-five pounds of pissed of motherness. 

"JAMES ROMEO WAITE, YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXCUSE FOR WHERE THE HELL YOU WERE LAST NIGHT!" 

"Ooohhh, Jamie's in TROUBLE..." A young female voice sing songed from the kitchen, followed by peal after peal of giggles. 

"Umm...hi Mom." Jamie muttered weakly, looking down at his feet. 

"Your middle name is ROMEO?" Catie asked in amazement.

"Uh, yeah." Jamie told her, his eyes still glued to his feet. Jamie's mother glared at him for a second more, before turning to Catie and smiling brightly for a second. The smile fell off her face when she noticed the bruise on the girl's face, and she gasped.

"What happened to your FACE?" The red haired woman asked in shock, stepping forward to peer closely at Catie's features. 

"I umm...walked into a wall?" Catie tried, chewing on her bottom lip. Jamie's mother turned her beautiful eyes, eyes that she had passed down to her son, TO her son, and questioned him with her eyes. He shook his head slightly, and pulled his lips into a frown, communicating to his mother without words what had really happened. 

"Sacred Dieu..." She whispered, grabbing a hold of Catie's hand and pulled her into the house and down the hall toward the kitchen. 

"Umm...ma'am?" Catie asked, trying, for once, to be polite. "Who...exactly are...?" She wasn't given a chance to finish however, because the tiny red haired woman beat her to it.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I'm Genevieve Waite...I'm Jamie's mother." Genevieve introduced herself not stopping her relentless pursuit into the kitchen. 

"Umm...mom? Where are you going with her?" Jamie asked from behind Catie, following the pale brunette like a big, faithful black Lab.

"I'm taking your girlfriend to the kitchen to put some ice on that bruise, so it doesn't swell anymore then it already HAS." Genevieve informed her son, and Catie almost laughed. She could just HEAR the little woman rolling her eyes.

"She's not my girlfriend." Jamie declared, annoyed. 

"Oh, right. Whatever. I don't care who she is, she needs ice put on that bruise." His mother snapped, sounding a little annoyed. "And you had better not talk back to me, young man, you are STILL in a lot of trouble. I will deal with you when I take care of her." 

This time Catie did laugh. She was surprised when Genevieve joined in, and she blinked. Jamie obviously had gotten more from his mother then just his eyes. He had her laugh to, though Genevieve's was higher. 

The red haired woman soon reached the swinging door of the kitchen, and banged through it, her tiny bare feet slapping against the linoleum. Since she still had a death grip on Catie's arm, the dark haired girl was forced to follow her, with Jamie just a few steps behind her. 

When they were fully inside the kitchen, Catie was returned her arm, as Jamie's mother bustled to the freezer to pull out the ice cube trays to make an ice pack. Catie, left with nothing else to do, look around at all the people in the room. 

Four little girls sat around the table, all looking at Catie like she was some odd rock that had just fallen out of the sky. Sami, who appeared to be the youngest smiled at her, and jumped out of her chair to run around the table and throw her arms around the older girl's waist. 

"Hi Jamie's girlfriend!" She giggled, her dark eyes, so like her brother's, twinkling. 

That got a rise out of the remaining three girls. 

"Jamie's got a girlfriend? Since when?" The only dark haired girl asked, grinning brightly at her brother who had stepped through the door to hear his littlest sister's comment. 

"She's not my girlfriend, Jazz." Jamie snapped at the girl, who just crossed her eyes at him and laughed. 

All of them had the same eyes, Catie noted, looking at the remaining two girls, who were both laughing into their cereal. 

"She's not? Then how come Sami SAID she was?" The smaller of the two red headed girls asked, grinning a gapped tooth smile. 

"Because Sami's little, Molly." Jamie reminded the child, looking over at Catie helplessly. His dark eyes seemed to say he was sorry about all of this, but Catie just smiled at him, the events of morning and last night dissipating under the pressure of the refreshingly normal scene in front of her.

"She's not THAT little, Jamie. She's four." The remaining redhead smirked, her eyes glowing. Her hair was redder then the other girl's, Catie noted, and her eyes were a bit darker. 

"Four and a HALF, Crimson!" Sami shrieked from where she still had her arms around Catie's hips.

"Excuse me, four and A HALF." Crimson rolled her eyes, smirking. 

"Dat's better." Sami allowed, grinning up at Catie. Genevieve finished the ice pack just about then, and tried to shoo the little girl away from Catie, but the child would have none of it. "I LIKE her." She informed her mother primly.

"You do?" The red haired woman asked in surprise, lifting her eyebrows. 

"Yes, I do."

"Well. Jamie, I think your just going to have to MARRY this girl." Genevieve teased her son, laughing out loud when his cheeks turned bright red. Catie giggled as well, her cheeks getting a little rosy at Jamie's mother's comments. 

She jumped in surprise when Genevieve pressed a cold ice packet to her face, and just barely bit back a squeal. 

"That's cold!" Catie muttered.

"It's ice." The red haired mother smiled, lifting an eyebrow.

"Mom..." Jamie groaned, annoyed. 

"Well, it is. Just leave that on there for a little while...ummm...what is your name?" Genevieve blinked blankly at Catie, her dark eyes wide and wondering.

"Catie." The pale brunette introduced herself, looking back over at Jamie who was currently trying to steal Molly's cereal, and the child was laughing and swatting at him, her red hair swinging. 

"Oh! YOUR Catie!" Genevieve sounded surprised, but she smiled, her eyes twinkling. She shook her head, and laughed again, something Catie was beginning to think she did a lot. "Well come on honey, you can lay down on the couch--you look sort of pale." 

"I always look pale." Catie joked, following Jamie's mother out of the room after shooting one more glance at Jamie.

"So do I! Curse of the red head." Genevieve shook her head, sweeping a handmade afghan off the couch and gesturing toward the dark couch encouragingly. Catie sank down gratefully, suddenly realizing that her knees felt like they were going to give out.

"I...thanks." 

The older woman nodded, and smiled, heading toward the kitchen. "I'll send Jamie in, just as soon as I get finished yelling at him." 

"Don't punish him to bad--it was mostly my fault." Catie tried to take up for her friend.

"Oh don't worry. I'm in no position to yell at him TOO harshly about staying out all night, and he knows it." Genevieve noted dryly, shaking her head.

"Oh." Catie muttered, at a lost for what to say to that comment. 

Jamie's mother waved her hand and disappeared into the kitchen, her long hair floating out behind her. 

"JAMES..." 

"Mom, I can explain!"

However, Catie didn't hear his explanation. As soon as her head hit the soft pillow, she was fast asleep, the ice pack still resting on her cheek.


	4. Family Ties

Disclaimer: Not mine, all Disney's. *grin* Don't you just hate it when stories make them selves longer then they need to be? Well, this one has done it! This was SUPPOSE to be "Much Ado About Nothing", but it managed to write itself into something different, so now I have to write "Much Ado About Nothing"! GRR! *girn* Anyway, I hope you like it, and this is for everybody that wanted to see more of Jamie's family! :) Hope you like it, and without further ado...  


Family Ties

Catie Roth was fast asleep, her long dark hair hanging over her face to half cover the black bruise that marred her cheek. Her fingers were coiled up near her mouth, and she slept peacefully on the old brown couch, her chest rising and falling with each soft breath she took. A bright red, orange, green and purple afghan covered her to her waist, the black shirt and long gold and black skirt that she had been wearing since the day before wrinkled around her body. 

Jamie Waite stood at the end of the couch, looking down at her, his dark eyes worried. He still had his leather jacket on, his hands shoved into his pockets, and a worry line creasing the skin between his eyes. 

She hadn't stirred in the three hours that he had been standing guard over her, only twitching a few times to some mental stimulus. Once, she had sighed, and he'd jumped a mile, but then she had settled back into her peaceful slumber. 

The midday sunlight streaming in through the large living room windows illuminated his living room, and, lacking anything better to do, he looked over it, committing every single detail to memory. 

A worn out brown chair, a match to the couch, was pushed up against one of the egg shell white walls, a grape juice stain coating one arm. He smiled, remembering how his mother had scrubbed to get the stain out, before finally sighing and giving up, justifying herself by saying that the stain gave the chair "character". The coffee table, set in front of the couch and directly across from the fireplace, corners had been rubbed down into nubs, and it's cherry wood top was impossibly scratched and marred, from long use as a child's "stage" and launch pad. The carpet was a gray brown, well used and soft to the touch. Another chair, this one a threadbare recliner, resided on the other side of the couch, the foot rest permanently stuck in the midway position, thanks Crimson's fifth grade science project. The floor was littered lightly with toys, Sami's teddy bear perched precariously on top of the couch, and peering down at Catie with an interested look on it's stuffed face. 

The mantle above the fire place was loaded almost to the breaking point with pictures. Jamie, Jazz, Crimson, and Molly's most recent school photos and a professional photo depicting Sami and her baby doll smiled down at the occupants of the room. But along with those pictures was a photo of a young man with short black hair and deep green eyes, with a slight smirk pulling at his features, dressed in a black leather jacket and leaning against a motorcycle, one arm crossed over his chest. A much younger Genevieve stood beside of him, her head resting on his shoulder. The picture next to that one depicted a family, the dark haired man from the previous picture standing behind an eleven year old Jamie, with his arm around a beaming Genevieve. Three little girls, Jazz, Crimson and Molly, beamed out of the frame as well, their dark eyes shining. 

Jamie turned his eyes from the pictures, instead letting his gaze rest on the peacefully sleeping Catie. The girl whimpered slightly in her sleep, twisting as if to get away from some one subconsciously, her face twisting in an expression of pain. 

"Catie?" Jamie whispered, knowing that she wouldn't hear him. Moving quicker then he thought possible, he was kneeling beside her, reaching out to stroke a lock of black hair out of her face. She cringed from his touch, her eyes suddenly popping open. 

She gapped at him for a minute, looking like she was just barely biting back a scream. Jamie blinked in surprise and reached out to touch her face, not knowing what else to do. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, and Catie let out a ear piercing scream. 

Jamie flinched back, just as his mother came running through the door, her long skirt billowing around her bare feet. She shot a glance at Jamie, before darting to Catie's side, gathering the distraught girl close to her side. 

"Shhhh....it's alright, honey. Shhhh..." Genevieve whispered to the girl, stroking her long dark hair back from her face. 

"Catie?" Jamie's voice was husky and scratchy, nothing like his normal voice. However, Catie looked up, her eyes focusing on him and she shuddered, pulling herself away from Genevieve to fling herself into Jamie's waiting arms. 

Jamie blinked and looked at his mother in concern, wondering what in the world was going on. His mother's lips were pulled down into a frown, her dark brown eyes studying her son and his friend with a thoughtfully sad expression. 

"Catie...Catie, what's wrong?" Jamie asked into her hair, rubbing her back in slow semi-circles. 

"I...oh...Jamie..." Catie choked out, clinging to Jamie as though her very life depended on it. Jamie continued to hold her, rocking back and forth gently, wondering what in the world could she have been dreaming to effect her so horribly. 

"Catie." His mother's voice surprised them both, and Jamie looked up at her, wondering what she was going to say. Catie turned from his chest and looked at her, tears still trickling down her face. "It's okay, sweetheart. You're safe."

"I...I...am...?" Catie whimpered slightly, quaking like a leaf in a tree in Jamie's arms. Genevieve let a slight smile of reassurance touch her lips, and she reached out to gently brush some of the tears off the girl's cheeks. 

"Yes. Your safe here Catie--nobodies going to hurt you. Jamie isn't going to let them." The older woman assured her, her eyes flicking to her son for an instant. Jamie took the hint and held Catie closer, laying his cheek against the top of her head. 

The girl slowly relaxed, though she still clung to Jamie as though her very life depended on the contact between them. Genevieve watched them for a few more minutes, her eyes darker then Jamie could remember having seen them before. A sort of old sadness and pain seemed to hover in his mother's eyes, and he almost opened his mouth to ask about it, but Catie whimpered in his arms, and he turned his full attention back to her. 

"Jamie?" A little girl's voice asked from the doorway. The young man looked up, and found his youngest sister, four year old Sami, standing in the doorway, her little baby hands holding a doll close to her chest. "What's wrong with Catie?" 

"Nothing...nothing." Catie fought for control over her fear and pushed it out of her mind, pulling herself together as best she could. "Nothing. I'm fine." 

Sami blinked at her, her large brown eyes declaring that she knew that Catie was lying, but she didn't say anything in response. The tiny child padded over to her brother and his friend, her long red hair swinging. Her mother lifted an eyebrow, but didn't say anything, when Sami sat down on the floor beside Jamie and Catie, and reached out to pat Catie's hand. 

Catie blinked, but smiled at the little girl, turning her hand over and capturing Sami's hand in her own. Sami smiled her brother's smile at the older girl, dark eyes far wiser then her years. 

"It'll be okay." Sami assured Catie softly, her lips hinting at a smile. "Jamie will protect you." 

"You just keep getting volenteered for that job, don't you?" Catie tried to joke, even though it fell flat and she knew it. 

"Hey, it's what I'm here for." Jamie smiled at her, giving her another hug before releasing her. Catie crawled back toward the couch, and leaned against it, facing Jamie, who had pulled his long legs into the Indian position. Sami scooted over and crawled into his lap, the top of her head resting against his chest. He rested his chin on the crown of her head, and the brother and sister gave Catie identical looks of worry. 

Catie blinked, and tried to smile at them. "Do you two have any idea how much you look alike?" 

"Do you have any idea how much the ACT alike?" Genevieve asked from her post on the couch. Catie jumped--she had forgotten that the woman was there. The older woman laughed, surprising Catie again. "Of course, people tell me all the time that their JUST like me, so I suppose that I can't really complain."

"Really?" Catie directed her question towards Jamie, who rolled his eyes, but smiled. 

"Yeah, but she's got a nastier temper then I do." He joked, grinning at his mother. 

"Good thing she's smaller then you are." Catie commented, then almost winced, hoping that Genevieve wouldn't take offense. However, the woman just laughed, rising from the couch and swishing toward the kitchen.

"Cait--size has nothing to do with. Jamie's father use to say that Jamie had my eyes, my smile and my right hook." 

Sami and Jamie snickered, and Catie looked back at them, her dark eyes glittering. "Do you really, Jamie?"

The young man in question nodded his head, his dark eyes shining. "Oh yeah. Who do you think taught me how to hit somebody?" 

"Your joking, right?" Catie demanded, suddenly shocked. 

Both Jamie and Sami shook their heads, not a hint of a smile playing on either of their lips. "Nope!" A soft female voice called from the general direction of the door at the same time, making the trio turn to see who it was. 

Jazz stood in the doorway, her long black hair pulled into a pony tale, and her hands behind her back. She stood tall, her shoulder's straight, and her toes pointed at slight angles. Catie blinked, and then turned to look at Jamie questioningly. 

"She's a dancer." He responded to her silent question, grinning as Catie nodded in understanding. 

"Huh?" Jazz asked, her dark eyes slightly confused. 

"She wanted to know why you stand like, well, that." Jamie informed his fourteen year old sister, gesturing to her posture. 

"Oh, are you a mind reader now?" Another voice asked, and Crimson popped her fire engine red head around her older sister, and smirked at her big brother. 

"Yes I am. And no, she's not." Jamie stressed, glaring at the red head. Crimson mock slapped her face, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief like Jamie's had a tendency to do. 

"You ARE a mind reader! I am SO IMPRESSED. Can I take you to show and tell?" Crimson begged dryly, rolling her dark eyes. 

Catie snorted with laughter, putting her hands up over her face and her shoulders shook slightly with giggles. Jamie and Crimson blinked at each other, and then looked over at her, wondering what she found so amusing. 

"What?" They asked in unison, and then glared at one another. 

"Do they do this all the time?" Catie asked an amused looking Jazz, who nodded her head. 

"Oh yeah. It's cause their so similar, Momma says." The fourteen year old explained, a slight smile pulling at her lips.

"How did you do that, Jamie?" 

"I'm a mind reader."

"Yeah right."

"I am." 

"If you were really a mind reader, you'd get better grades!" 

"Hey--bite me!" 

Catie giggled and shook her head, the fear of before lost in the amusement the two siblings argument generated. She looked back at Jazz, who was struggling to contain her own amusement, and another wave of laughter over took her. 

Before Crimson could come back with anything to her brother's comment, Genevieve's voice rang through the house. "Jamie! Come in here!" 

"Oooh, you're in trouble AG-AIN!" Crimson teased, her eyes sparkling. Jamie grinned and shooed Sami out of his lap, standing up slowly.

"No I'm not, I haven't done anything to get in trouble." 

"For a change!" Jazz piped up, sending Catie, Crimson and even little Sami into peals of laughter. 

"This isn't as funny as you guys think it is." Jamie groused, heading for the door, running his fingers through his lap. 

Sami, having been denied her accustom place in her "favoritest" brother's lap, shocked both her sisters and Catie by climbing over into the young Goth girl's lap. Catie shifted her legs slightly under the unaccustomed weight, but adjusted quickly. The little girl was warm and soft and smelled like sugar and spice, and the weight of the child was strangely comforting. 

Crimson and Jazz exchanged a look, but then simultaneously shrugged. Catie looked at them in confusion, lifting an eyebrow and preparing to ask what Sami was doing in her lap, when Jazz answered her unspoken question.

"She must like you. She rarely ever sits in anybody but our laps." Jazz mused out loud. 

"I like her." Sami repeated her statement from early, snuggling into Catie's arms and closing her eyes, and promptly falling asleep. 

Crimson's mouth dropped, and her eyes got as huge as dinner plates. Catie adjusted the little girl in her lap and then looked up at Crimson. 

"What?" She asked, confused. 

"Nothing--it's just that she NEVER does that. I mean, the only people's whose laps she sleeps in is Jamie's and Momma's." Jazz told Catie, her own dark eyes huge. 

"What, she doesn't sleep in your dad's lap?" Catie asked innocently, then immediately wished she hadn't. 

Crimson's face feel, her dark eyes dropping to study the old carpet, her lower lip beginning to tremble slightly. Jazz sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, her own eyes brimming with tears. 

'Note to self: don't ask Jamie about his dad.' Catie thought to herself, hoping that she wasn't going to make the younger girls cry.

"She never meet our dad." Jazz explained, sitting down beside Catie and Sami, reaching out to pat the child's head. 

Catie couldn't help but ask. "Why?" 

"He died before she was born." Jazz whispered softly, patting the child's hair. "Almost five years ago." 

"I'm so...sorry. I...didn't know. Jamie never said..." Catie trailed off, not sure what else to say. 

"We--any of us--don't talk about it much." Crimson explained, sinking to the floor in front of the older girls bonelessly, propping her chin up on one hand. 

"It's just to hard." Jazz explained softly, eyeing Catie carefully. 

"I bet." Catie murmured, looking down at the sleeping Sami. 

"What's your dad like?" The dark haired girl asked Catie, tilting her head to the left. Crimson looked interested to, her red eyebrows lifting almost to her hair line. 

"Umm...probably not anything like yours. Hopefully." The last comment was muttered under her breathe, and neither of the girls caught it. Catie sighed thankfully, and then smiled. "So--what was Jamie like when he was little?"

*****

"What's up Mom? I want to get back out there before the munchkins start telling Catie embarrassing stuff about me." Jamie grinned, walking into the kitchen and jumping up onto the counter. 

"Oh, they don't know any of the good stuff. Wait until *I* get her alone!" His mother teased, her dark eyes glinting.

"Oh, is this what you wanted to talk to me about?" Jamie groaned, getting ready to jump off the table and go back to Catie, when his mother's next words froze him in his tracks.

"What do you know about Catie's father?" It wasn't really the words. It was the way she said it--he hadn't heard her so serious since-- *that* night, nearly five years ago. 

"Nothing. I don't even know what his name is--she never mentions him. Why?" Jamie asked, confused. 

Genevieve shook her head, not looking at her soon. "No reason. Just...wondering." 

"Liar." Jamie accused his mother, much to her surprise. But before she could condemn him for his comment, he continued. "What are you getting at mom? You don't 'just wonder' about anything. And if it involves Catie, I wanna know about it." 

Genevieve looked up at her son, and put a hand up over her mouth. She wasn't looking at her son right at that second--she was looking at her husband, nearly twenty years ago. Never mind that Jamie had her eyes---right now, the expression in them was the same as she remembered in Sam Waite's deep green eyes, boiling with a strange mix of anger, concern and love.

"You do love her so." She whispered, rising her hand to her mouth. Jamie started at her words, and stared at his mother in shock.

"What?" He asked, wondering how his mother had figured something out in a day that had taken him years to realize.

"Nothing, baby. Listen--do you think Catie might want to stay here? I mean, just for the weekend--give her mom some time to calm down?" Genevieve wondered, looking over her shoulder. 

"I think she should stay here forever." Jamie murmured, and then wished he hadn't when he saw his mother smile. 

"Give it time, Jamie. You might just get your wish." 


	5. Much Ado About Nothing

__

Disclaimer: Not mine, all Disney's. *grin* Look everybody, I got a sequel to "Family Ties" out the same day I got "Family Ties" out! Everybody be so happy! *grin* Okay okay, anyway, here's my new fic. I can't think of anything witty to say...oh wait, yeah. I'm not dissing Brittany Spears in this fic, it just went with the flow of the story. This story is just sorta light and (suppose to be) funny. I figured that this could be my "Porter Scene" for this series, because, trust me, it gets steadily more angst ridden as I go along. *grin* So be on the lookout for my next three fics (in this order!): "For All this We Give Thanks...", "Where Are You Christmas", and (the big 'climax' of this storyline with Catie, though more then likely NOT the end of the series) "Broken". Anyway, that's all I have to say, and without further ado...

Much Ado About Nothing

Monday mornings were the worse invention in the history of man, Jamie Waite was sure of it. 

Yawning, the young man sat up, stretching his long frame to get the kinks out of it, and almost wished that he hadn't given his bed up to Catie Roth. However, the mental image of the bruise that still decorated her face was enough to bring him up short. He'd go through anything, even hell itself, to keep her from harm, and he knew it. 

But his back still hurt, and no heroic ideals could change that. Slinging his long legs onto the floor, Jamie rose from the couch and padded on bare feet into the kitchen. His back popped painfully twice on the way there, and he winced, twisting at the waist to try and work the creaks out of his spine. 

Another massive yawn overtook him, and he pushed open the door to the kitchen. He wondered in to find his mother leaning against the counter in her blue, gold, purple, orchid and pink bathrobe, eating a bagel and reading the paper with half hearted interest. His younger sister's Jazz and Molly were already at the table, Molly half asleep in her cereal, her long red hair just centimeters from the milk. Jazz was dressed for school already, her black hair swept back into an elaborate bun.

However, it was Catie Roth, sitting across the table from Jazz and with her chin propped up on one hand that drew his eye. Her long black hair was pulled into a pony tale, something that he had yet to see on her, and she was dressed in one of his tee-shirts, the black one with the slogan 'Make It Stop' scrawled across her chest. Her eyes were half shut, and she didn't have any make-up on to hide the yellowing bruise on her face, but she looked more beautiful then he could remember ever seeing her before. 

"Morning." He muttered, shuffling across the linoleum floor to grab one of his mother's bagels, and crashing into the seat next to Catie and across from Molly. He kicked the little girl softly under the table, and she yelped, jerking her head up. She pouted at him from the table, blinking her dark eyes at him. "Wake up, cutie pie." 

"I am awake." Molly muttered, putting her hand under her chin. 

"Then don't sleep in your cereal." Jamie told her, grabbing a knife off the table and slicing open his bagel quickly. 

"Oh. Good idea." Molly murmured, closing her eyes again. 

"Coffee..." A new voice groaned from the doorway, and Crimson dragged herself through the doorway, still dressed in a pair of velvet purple pajama bottoms with tiny moons all over them and a matching purple tank top. 

"Your to little to drink coffee." Genevieve reminded her, sipping at her own steaming mug of the black liquid. 

"No fair..." Crimson whined, dropping into a seat next to Catie, and dropping her head down onto the table with a thump. 

Catie looked at all of them with amusement through half lidded eyes, though her gaze seemed to continuously dart to the nearly asleep Jamie. He wore sweat pants and a wife-beater to sleep in, leaving his long, leanly muscled arms open to her inspection. His dark hair was wilder then normal, and there were deep circles under his eyes, making him look like he hadn't slept soundly in days. 

For about the three hundredth time, Catie felt badly for taking his bed. Her much smaller frame fit much better on the couch then his nearly six foot frame did, but he had simply refused to budge in his declaration that she should sleep in his bed. Finally, at three o'clock in the morning Saturday, she had been to tired and hoarse to continue to argue anymore and had given in. 

She caught Genevieve looking at her looking at her son, and she felt a blush begin to bloom on her cheeks. But Jamie's mother just smiled, and went back to her paper, her dark eyes sparkling nearly identically to her son's. 

"Catie, what are you going to wear to school today?" Jazz suddenly asked, her voice far to perky for a fourteen year old at seven thirty in the morning. 

"Oh...Geez, I don't know." Catie muttered, mentally smacking herself for not having thinking about it earlier. Hanging out in Jamie's tee shirts would work alright for around the house, but not for school--though she could probably make one heck of a statement if she walked into school dressed in Jamie's "Disobey" tee shirt and nothing else. She grinned as she thought about Val's reaction, but quickly banished the thought. 

"You could probably wear some of my clothes...." Jazz suggested, crinkling her eyebrows and looking at Catie thoughtfully. 

"We're about the same height, but your about twenty five pounds lighter then I am, Jazz." Catie reminded her, looking at the girl's pencil thin frame. 

"Plus, I don't think Catie's much for sweater sets." Jamie piped up, eyeing his little sister's "Good Little Catholic Girl" attire. 

"She could always go as Brittany Spears." Molly suggested, her dark eyes brightening interest. Catie snorted through her nose, trying to picture herself dressed like. 

"Yeah!" Crimson added, a slow smile pulling at her lips. 

"Okay, now there's an image that I'm not going to be getting out of my head anytime soon." Jamie muttered, smirking at Catie. Genevieve snorted, making her children and Catie look at her in surprise. 

"I just know remembered who you were talking about." She explained, smiling brightly. "Catie, I'd lend you some of my clothes, if I wasn't afraid they'd fall off. Baring five children does not to much for your figure, I'm telling you." 

Jamie opened his mouth to say something, but his mother rolled the newspaper up in her hand and smacked him over the head with it before he could say anything. 

"Hush." 

"Yes ma'am." 

"Come on Catie!" Jazz suddenly spoke up, jumping up from her seat at the table and bouncing around it to grab Catie's hands. 

"Did I mention that she's the only morning person in the entire family?" Jamie called to Catie as she was bodily hauled away, with Crimson and Molly following along behind. 

"No--that would have been useful to know." Catie's voice floated back, accompanied by the little girls laughter. 

As soon as they were out of earshot, Jamie sensed his mother's eyes on him. He turned to her, and noticed her beaming at him. He winced, and then lifted an eyebrow. 

"What?" He asked, wondering why his mother was looking at him like that. 

"I really like her, Jamie." His mother began, a small smile playing on her lips. 

"MOM!" 

"Well, I do! She's sweet, and cute, and she's good for you. Now, explain to me again, why you two aren't, as they say, 'going out'?" Genevieve asked, lifting an eyebrow just the way her son did. 

"Because...she doesn't think of me like that. I mean--I don't think of HER like that!" Jamie attempted to cover his faux pas, and failing miserably. 

"Right, mon coeur." Jamie winced--his mother only used French terms of endearment when she was being sarcastic. 

"I don't." 

"Of course, mon fils." Genevieve teased, her eyes glowing. 

"I...have to go get dressed." Jamie groused, stomping out of the room. 

"Adieu, mon petite!" Was his mother's parting shot, and then she dissolved into peals of laughter, much to her son's disgust. 

She was still giggling when he came back down, fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed, his black hair standing on end, and his black leather jacket in his hands. Jamie glared at her for a minute, before letting the expression slid off his face as he crashed into one of the abandoned chairs, and wondered what was taking Catie and his sisters so long. 

"Why DOES it take girls so long to get ready?" Jamie asked his mother suddenly, startling her out of her guffaws. 

"We know how much it drives men crazy." Genevieve informed her son, her brilliant eyes sparkling. 

"Oh." Before Jamie could say anything else, the door was flung open, and Crimson and Molly bounced in, fully dressed and beaming. Jamie looked at them for a long moment, horror written over his features. "Mere...their acting like Jazz..." 

"Haha, very funny!" Jazz's voice shouted from the living room, seconds before she burst into the room as well, grinning impishly. 

"Where's Catie?" Jamie asked, worry evident in his tone. His little sisters exchanged a look, and giggled. 

"She's coming." They all said in the same sing-song voice, three pairs of matching brown eyes glowing at their brother. 

"Oh, this can't be good..." Jamie muttered, just as the door swung open, and Catie Roth wondered into the room, Sami half asleep in her arms. 

Well, he THOUGHT it was Catie Roth, though he couldn't be to sure--since the Catie he knew and loved--liked--would NOT dress like a (far more attractive) clone of Brittany Spears. But...she was. 

Catie had donned one of his sister's pleated plaid skirts, and a white button down shirt that she had tied up just above her belly button. A pair of knee high socks, and clunky shoes completed the outfit, along with her dark hair having been twisted into a pair of braids, even adding the pink fluff balls. 

"Oh...kay....WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH CATIE!?" Jamie demanded, his eyes as big as dinner plates. 

Genevieve choked on her coffee, spitting some of it onto the counter. "Oh, THAT'S who you were talking about--I thought you were talking about the little girl who thought she was a genie!" 

@-}--}---

"I still can't believe your dressed like that. " Jamie muttered to Catie, as the duo walked through the doors of Kingsport High, Catie's dark braids swinging. She glared at a group of soccer players that stared at her as she walked by, before turning to Jamie and grinning. 

"Oh come on, I think it's kinda fun! And definitely funny." Catie snickered, pushing back one of her braids. 

"You would." Jamie told her, catching a group of guys staring at her legs, their mouths agape. He glared at them, giving them the universal guy signal for "stay away, she's mine". 

"Yes, yes I would." The girl smirked, side stepping around one of the many blonde cheerleaders the school was infested with. 

By this time, the duo had reached Catie's locker, and she spun the lock, and then twisted it around to her combination. She had just opened the door, when a blur of blonde hair and dark blue whirled up to them, catching both Catie and Jamie off guard. 

The blur rematerialized into Val Linar, the pretty blonde's eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape. Catie blinked at her, and then exchanged a look with Jamie, before opening her mouth to speak to her friend. 

"Ummm...hi?" 

"Why DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!? I had to find it out from Heather Stillmore!" Val accused, putting her hands on her hips and looking put out. 

"Tell you--what?" Catie asked, a bubble of horror welling up in her throat. The mindless masses at school hadn't found out about this weekend had they? If they had....Catie didn't even want to think about it. 

"About you and HIM!" Val cried, thrusting her finger at Jamie. The accused young man blinked, and he and Catie looked at each other, each questioning the other with their eyes. Both of them shrugged in ignorance, before turning back to the slightly fuming blonde. 

"What ABOUT me and HIM?" Catie asked, pointing her finger at Jamie the same way Val had, mocking her best friend. 

"About you two being TOGETHER! I mean, Heather told ME that she had heard it from her cousin, who heard it from HER best friend!" Val rattled off, making Jamie smirk. 

"Who heard it from her boyfriend, who heard it from HIS dog catcher, who heard it from the Tramp..." Jamie mocked the blonde, making Catie giggle. 

But Val was a woman on a mission, and right now, Jamie's prattling was not part of her mission. Crossing her arms, she lifted her eyebrows at her best friend.

"You WERE going to tell me, right? I mean, how could you keep something like this from me for SIX MONTHS...I mean, I thought you denied it kinda quick when I asked you about it, but I just thought that you meant you LIKED him, not that it was actually TRUE..." Val babbled, her eyes round. 

"What IS she talking about?" Catie asked Jamie, before turning her attention back to the blonde. 

"She's your best friend." Jamie pointed out, smirking as Val continued to talk. 

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that I understand her." Catie replied. 

Just then, Tyler Connell walked back, beaming at the two of them. Catie and Jamie exchanged another confused look, and then looked at Tyler, neither knowing what to expect from him, or what he wanted.

They didn't have to wait long to find out.

"How you guys didn't TELL us? I mean, I think it's cool! You two look good together." Tyler praised them, his eyes darting to Val, who was STILL talking, even though no one was paying attention to them. "Did you know, Val? How come you didn't tell me?" 

"Because I just know found out! When did YOU find out?" Val asked him, turning her attention to the blond football player. 

"This morning. I heard about it from Hank, who heard it from Jasmine, who heard it from Heather..."

"Who heard it from her cousin, who heard it from her best friend?" Val finished for him, nodding her head. 

"Who heard it from the ice cream man, who heard it from the five year old, who heard it from his grandmother, who heard it from the aliens..." Catie added, smirking up at Jamie. 

Jamie chuckled, grinning at the dark eyed girl, who smirked back, rolling her eyes at the strange customs that came with being popular. 

Hank Beechum strolled up at that point, and grinned at Jamie and Catie, the same way Tyler had, and the confused twosome winced, hoping this wasn't going to lead to more confusing interrogation. 

But the handsome quarterback just grinned, and asked "So, have you guys really been dating six months?" 

Jamie's draw dropped and Catie stared at him, dumbfounded. Hank grinned at them, running his hand over his head, continuing his comments with: "You guys don't have to deny it. Everybody's heard about it by now!" 

Jamie and Catie looked at each other, then back at Hank, then at each other again, before shrieking "WHAT!?" in unison. 

******

Catie heaved a sigh of relief when the last bell of the day rung, signaling the end of the school day. Today had defiantly been one of the MOST stressful days of her life, and that was saying something after some of the days she had had in the past. 

She had been asked, probably a hundred times that day, if she and Jamie were going out, and if they were, how long had it been, and when was her baby due? 

It was that last comment that had had her head spinning. She had grabbed Val at the end of third period, threatening to tell Tyler about her undying devotion to him, if she didn't fill her in on what everyone was saying about her RIGHT THEN.

She almost wished she hadn't. 

According to Val, the rumors going around school ranged from the almost believable--the idea that she and Jamie had been secretly going out for a few months now--to the utterly insane--they had run off and gotten married that weekend, and were expecting their first child. 

"I didn't realize that my love life was so interesting to the general public." Catie muttered to herself as she opened her locker door, her lips pulled into a frown. 

"What was that, my beloved blushing bride?" A deep voice teased from behind her, and Catie glared at Jamie over her shoulder, her long black hair falling into her eyes, subtracting from the intensity of the look. 

"Funny. But could I expect anything less from the father of my child?" The dark haired girl asked, lifting an eyebrow. 

"Speaking of the kid, what are we going to name it?" Jamie snickered, walking beside her as the duo made their way out the door. 

"Oh, I was thinking of maybe Charisma for a girl..." Catie trailed off, her eyes sparkling. 

"Hey, that's pretty." Jamie joked back, a slight grin pulling at his lips. "We could name her Charisma Titannia." 

"Uh...why?" Catie asked, her curiosity piqued. 

"It's tradition in my family. I'm not the only one with a middle name that came out of a Shakespeare play--all of our names did." Jamie informed her. 

"Your kidding." Catie gaped, her eye wide. 

"I wish I was--James Romeo, Jasmine Cordelia, Crimson Ophelia, Molly Hero and Samantha Desdemona." Jamie rattled off, much to Catie's amusement. 

"Okay, where does Titannia come from?" 

"A Midsummer Night's Dream." Jamie replied. 

"Oh. So, can we name him Romeo if he's a boy?" Catie requested, smirking at her 'husband' in amusement. 

"Um, no." Jamie replied.

"Oh, come on..." Catie pleaded, her eyes laughing. "Please?" 

Before Jamie could say anything else, a very feminine shriek filled their ears. "DEAN KAHFKEY! I'M NEVER SPEAKING TO YOU AGAIN!" 

"Oh come on Heather, baby..." 

Jamie and Catie looked at each other, and smiled. It looked like their fifteen minutes of fame were up. 

"Hey, you know, I'm not on call today. Wanna go hang out at my house?" 

"I'm there." 


	6. For All This We Give Thanks

Disclaimer: Not mine, all Disney's, except for Jamie's family. Their mine! :) I can't really think of anything else to say about this story, except that I hope you like it, and I know that I skipped a lot of time in between the last one and this one. I did it on purpose, or this story arc was never going to end! LOL! Anyway, this is the sequel to "Much Ado About Nothing". I can't think of anything else to say about it, so without further ado...

For All This We Give Thanks... 

"So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" Jamie Waite asked Catie Roth, as the duo made their way down the hallway of Kingsport High, the Wednesday before turkey day. The dark haired girl shrugged her shoulders, hitching her bag up higher on her shoulders. 

"I don't know. Probably stay at home." Catie shrugged again. Jamie looked at her out of the corner of his eye, his lips drawn into a slight frown. 

"Speaking of home..." Jamie began, but Catie cut him off. 

"Jamie. Chill. I appreciate that your worried about me, but nothing has happened since Halloween. I told you, that was the worse ever. Mom is usually so out of it that she never notices me anyway." Catie shrugged her shoulders, forcing her lips into a reassuring smile. 

Jamie glanced at her again, and steeled himself for her reaction to his next question. "What about your Dad?" 

"What about my Dad?" Catie asked a little to quickly. 

"Has he..." Jamie trailed off, wincing at the glare she aimed at him. 

"My dad doesn't pull any of that crap." Catie defended her father quickly...to quickly. She refused to look at him, her dark eyes scanning the hallway for someone, anyone else. 

Jamie knew she was lying the minute the words were out of her mouth, but he decided to let it slide-- for the moment. 

His mother's words still rang in his head, egging him on, but so far, Jamie hadn't come across anything to confirm Genevieve's unspoken worry. However, he wasn't ready to give up trying---he could still remember the stark terror in Catie's eyes when she had woken up that afternoon that she had fallen asleep at his house. The young man shook his head slightly, dragging himself away from his thoughts and back to reality. 

"So, what are you doing?" Catie asked, and Jamie blinked.

"For what?" 

"The Fourth of July." She snapped sarcastically, making Jamie wince. "Thanksgiving, duh." 

"Oh. Suffering through my mother's cooking with my sisters, then making fun of the Macey's Day parade with Crimson, while everyone else is glued to it, and then falling asleep on the couch." Jamie grinned. 

"Sounds exciting." Catie smirked, rolling her eyes. 

"Oh, it is. Don't mess with tradition, I say." Jamie chuckled, making Catie laugh out loud. "Well, some traditions." He amended, and she nodded. 

"Good point." 

The two teenagers reached the double doors that lead outside at that point, and, since Jamie was on call that afternoon, they went their separate ways, calling goodbye as they went. 

"I'll call you tonight!" Jamie yelled to her as he hurried to his bike. 

"Yeah, just try to make it before midnight this time!" Catie called back, laughing. 

@-}--}---

Jamie yawned as he opened the back door of his house, walking into the kitchen. It had been a long, rather boring shift, with only three calls, and none of them serious. The rest of the time had been spent playing darts with Hank, and making fun of Val and Tyler as they stared longingly at each other over their math homework. 

He chuckled at the memory, stepping fully into the lit kitchen. The dark haired young man jumped in surprise to see his mother sitting at the table, a steaming cup of blackberry tea in front of her. 

"Hey mom. What are you doing up?" Jamie asked her, tossing his jacket onto the back of a chair, and sitting down across the table from her. She smiled slightly at him, her face paler then normal.

"Couldn't sleep." Genevieve admitted, sipping at her tea, looking up at her oldest child with sad dark eyes. "Your father always use to make me this kind of tea when I couldn't sleep. I use to hate it, but he swore it made me sleep better. He was such a hippie about some things. Never would just let me take sleeping pills." 

"I remember that." Jamie smiled bitter sweetly at the memory. "Of course, he always made ME drink cinnamon tea when I woke up in the middle of the night." 

"And he gave Jazz orange juice laced with grapefruit juice. And Crimson always got tomato juice." Genevieve smiled as well, though the expression did not reach her eyes. 

"Dad was weird." Jamie mused, making his mother laugh half heartedly.

"I know it baby. You know why he gave you that drink, don't you? And your sisters?" His mother asked, setting her chin down on her palm, her elbow resting on the table. 

"You know, I never did figure that out. And I never remembered to ask." Jamie shook his head, and then looked expectedly at his mother. The woman smiled, and picked up her mug, taking a sip of the liquid inside, before continuing her story. 

"When I was pregnant with you, you would always, always, ALWAYS wake me up, kicking me. And your father gave me all KINDS of home remedies, trying to make you calm down. The only one that worked was cinnamon tea. You always calmed down after I drunk that." Genevieve laughed, her eyes looking less sad. "And it was the same with your sisters. When Molly had gotten big enough, he was going to give her iced tea laced with lemon." 

Jamie chuckled as well, his eyes taking a far away cast to them. "But why did he give you blackberry tea?" 

His mother grinned at him, her eyes taking on a slightly wicked look in them. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Umm...that depends. Is it going to gross me out?" Jamie asked, making his mother laugh again. 

"Probably." 

"Go ahead and tell me, because I'll never get any peace if I don't know." Jamie groaned. 

Genevieve grinned, and said, "Well, you were conceived in a blackberry bramble." 

"And that is enough for me!" Her son banged his head against the table, making his mother laugh again. 

"Hey, I warned you!" 

"I'm going to call Catie, and then I'm going to bed." Jamie told his mother firmly, shaking his head. The woman smiled and took another sip of her tea.

"Oh--I'm glad you told me that! Ask Catie if she wants to come to dinner tomorrow." Genevieve requested, swallowing the liquid quickly. 

"Cool." Jamie brightened, making his mother shake her head. As he hurried up the stairs, Genevieve turned back to her tea, letting a smile cross her lips.

"He has it so bad for that little girl..."  


@-}--}---

Catie was scrawling on the pad of paper in front of her, trying to hurry up and get her history homework done before Jamie called. He said that he would call as soon as he got home, and that was usually around midnight. She had the cordless phone right beside her, so that she could pick it up as soon as it rang, so as not to disturb either of her parents, both of whom were home that night. 

Letting them know that she was awake was the LAST thing she wanted right now. Her father (when he was sober) was VERY strict about the phone and bed time. She still had a apple sized bruise on her back from the last time he had caught her on the phone with Jamie, a few nights ago. 

The phone beside her suddenly buzzed, and Catie snatched it up quickly, pushing the talk button before it had time to ring again. 

"Hello?" She asked quietly, knowing that it would be Jamie.

"Hey." A deep voice answered back, making her smile slightly. 

"How was your shift?" The girl asked, kicking her feet up into the air, and putting her pencil down. She'd finish her homework later--she had until Monday. 

"Dull. All I did was watch Val and Tyler make goo goo eyes at each other the entire night." Jamie complained, making Catie snort with laughter. 

"Poor baby. That would make anyone nauseous. They should just admit that their like, totally in love with each other, and move on from there." Catie thought out loud.

"I know--but then, who would I have to make fun of at the station?" Jamie asked.

"Alex." Catie supplied, and Jamie laughed. 

"Now there's an idea. So, what're you doing?" He wanted to know.

"History homework." 

"Fun."

"Well, I had to do something to keep me awake. I didn't want the phone ringing to wake up my parents." Catie told him, and then immediately wished she hadn't. 

"Why? They wouldn't--" Before Jamie could get any further into his interrogation, Catie cut him off. 

"Calm down, their not going to do anything to me. I promise." The dark haired girl assured him. 

"Okay." Jamie still did not sound convinced, but changed the subject anyway. "Oh yeah, my mom wants to know if you wanna come for dinner tomorrow?"

"Oh...ummm...yeah, sure." Catie agreed, letting a smile light up her features. 

She'd never tell him, but Catie loved Jamie's family, more then anyone in her own family. They all seemed so--loving and so...family-like. But still managed to stay away from the happy dorky Brady Bunch family that other families that were so connected had a tendency to fall into. 

"What time?" Catie asked, hoping that it would be later in the day, and her parents would be drunk enough not to notice when she left. 

"Umm...around two, but you can come over earlier, if you want." Jamie offered, hoping that she would. 

"Cool...umm...do you need me to...bring anything?" Catie asked, not really sure what to ask in a situation like this. She had never been invited to Thanksgiving dinner before at some one else's house, and it seemed rude to her come empty handed. 

"Nothing but a barf bag." Jamie joked, and Catie lifted an eyebrow. Almost as if he could hear her expression, he explained. "My mom's cooking is...umm...well...not great. She tries, she really does, but she REALLY sucks at the whole cooking thing. I think she actually did burn water once." 

Catie snorted with laughter, burying her head in her comforter. When she got control of her giggles, she choked out "Please tell me your joking. Your mom did not actually burn WATER did she?" 

"I swear! She is that...well...I wouldn't really say 'talented', but you get the picture." Jamie told her calmly, before laughing out loud.

"Okay, I guess I have something to look forward to now." Catie laughed, louder then she intended. A muffled thud caught her ears, and she winced. 'Oh Lord, I've woken one of them up now...' 

"Catie?" Jamie asked, yanking her out of her thoughts. 

"Oh, hey, Jamie, I gotta go. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" Catie asked, her eyes glued to the door, and her heartbeat banging in her chest. 

"Yeah okay. Are you okay? Is something wrong?" Jamie asked, concerned. She swallowed, and tried to make her voice came out steady. 

"No, nothing's wrong. I'm fine. I just...umm...gotta go. I'm fine. Uh...well...umm...bye." Catie clicked the off button, but not before she heard Jamie's worried voice.

"Catie, wait..." 

"Catie..." Her father's voice called from behind the closed door, and the girl winced, hoping that he would think she had just fallen asleep with the light on. No such luck. 

The door banged open, and Catie found herself trapped in her own personal hell. 

@-}--}---

Jamie had just come downstairs, still dressed in his pajamas, when he heard the doorbell ring. Checking the clock, he blinked in surprise. Who could be here at eight o'clock in the morning? 

Shrugging he went to answer the door, grabbing the doorknob and swinging to the door open. He blinked, and then blinked again, wondering if he was still asleep. Catie Roth stood in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a semi-tight black shirt, with her hair pulled into two ponytails on top of her head.

"Catie?" He asked, leaning against the doorway. "What are you doing here?" 

"You invited me." Catie reminded him, before biting her lower lip. "I mean, am I to earlier--I could come back later..." 

"No...no, it's okay. Come in. When I said you could come earlier, I didn't think you'd come quite THIS earlier, but it's fine. Really." Jamie assured her, studying her face. Something about it looked...funny, to him. One side looked...puffy, or something. And when she stepped into the house, he noticed that she was moving stiffly, like it hurt to move her back. "Hey...are you okay?" 

"Huh...oh. Yeah. I just...slept funny, or something." Catie was lying to him again. Jamie studied her features again, more closely. And her make-up was way more heavy then she normally wore it. 

Something was going on, and he wanted to know what it was. Something was WRONG with her, but knowing her, she wasn't going to own up to it, even if he pushed. *Especially* if he pushed. 

But he couldn't help but ask. "Are you sure?" 

"Yeah. I took some Tylenol before I left, I should be fine." Catie assured him, unable to look in the face. 

Jamie swallowed, not liking the fact that she wouldn't look at him, but let it slide, again. "Have you had breakfast yet? You might want to eat something, because it's never good to take Mom's food on an empty stomach." 

"Oh, FUNNY!" Genevieve called from the kitchen, making both Catie and Jamie smile. 

"Come on." Jamie lead the dark haired girl into the kitchen, grinning at his mother, who was in nearly the same position as she had been, last night, except that the paper was lying in front of her, and she was ideally flipping through it. 

She looked up when her son and his friend walked into the room, and she smiled brightly at the girl. "Hi honey. How are you?" 

"Oh...um, fine." Catie smiled back, feeling better already. Just being in Jamie's house made her feel better--made her feel safe. 

"That's good, honey." Genevieve smiled, sipping her coffee. "Have you had breakfast yet?" 

"That's just what we came in here to do." Jamie told his mother, dropping a kiss on the top of her head as he walked toward the refrigerator. 

"Oh--are you going to cook for her?" Genevieve asked, smiling at Catie. 

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" The girl asked Jamie's mother, grinning. Genevieve laughed, pushing back a lock of red hair. 

"It's a good thing!" Jamie spoke up in his own defense. "I'm a good cook! I learned from *Dad*."

"Is that a crack about my cooking?" His mother asked, lifting an eyebrow. 

"Definitely. Where did you hide the bacon?" Jamie asked, smirking at his mother. 

The woman made a face, miming sticking a finger down her throat. "Your not going to cook that nasty pig meat, are you?" 

"You don't like pork?" Catie guessed, and Genevieve made a face, shaking her head.

"No, I don't eat any meat." The woman explained.

"Really?" Catie perked up. "Me either." 

"I'm still kicking myself for letting Sam--Jamie's father--let the kids eat meat." The red haired woman sighed. "Now they're all hopeless carnivores." 

"You make it sound like such a negative thing." Jamie told her, smiling over his shoulder and closing the fridge door and then heading for the door of the kitchen. 

"Now, where are you going?" Genevieve asked him, lifting an eyebrow. 

"To go ask Jazzy if she knows were you hid the bacon." The young man told her, leaving the room. 

As soon as he was gone Genevieve laughed, her dark brown eyes twinkling. "He's so...so...so.." 

"Jamie?" Catie supplied, grinning. 

"That's it." The mother snapped her fingers and smiled. Then she shook her head. "It's scary how much he can be like his father, sometimes." 

"I thought you said he was like you." Catie remembered. 

"He is, mostly. But their one or two...quarks in his personality, that are most definitely from his father." The woman smiled at the younger girl. Catie smiled back, and, unthinkingly, leaned back in her seat. She had been sitting on the edge, trying to keep her bruised back off the hard wood seat, but she was so involved in what Genevieve was saying to her, she didn't even think. 

As soon as her back hit the wood of the chair, a shot of pain raced through her, and she gasped sitting up straight. Genevieve jerked her head up from her paper, her eyes glimmering with the same concerned worry that always seemed to be sparkling in Jamie's eyes when he looked at her. 

"Catie? Catie, are you okay?" She asked, rising to her feet and moving around the table to the girl's side. 

"I...I'm fine..." Catie whispered softly, through clenched teeth, her eyes watering slightly. 

"I don't believe you. Is it your back? Let me see." Genevieve demanded gently, brushing a strand of Catie's dark hair away from her face. 

"No." Catie whispered, looking down at the table, a teardrop trickling down her cheek. 

"Why not? What happened to you Catie?" Her voice was so soft and so concerned, that Catie almost broke down and told. Almost. 

"I...I just slept on it wrong. It's nothing." Catie tired the line that had seemed to work on Jamie. 

"Oh really?" Genevieve asked, lifting an eyebrow, but sat back down, this time across the table from Catie. She sat her chin on her hand, and looked at Catie for a long second, before letting a bittersweet smile touch her face. "You know, Sam and I got married when I was seventeen years old."

"What?" Catie asked, confused as to what that had to do with anything. Genevieve nodded her head, her eyes suddenly very far away.

"I was pregnant with Jamie. I was a senior in high school, and Sam had just graduated trade school. He was a mechanic, you know. He was nearly five years older then I was, but that didn't bother either one of us. Anyway, he asked me to run away and marry him, told me that we would never have to go back to Nigeria Falls, New York again. That's where we grew up--well, he grew up. I moved their when I was fifteen, from Toronto." Genevieve told Catie, watching her carefully.

"Your a Canadian?" Catie asked, then mentally smacked herself. Genevieve had just practically told her her entire life's story, and the smartest thing she could say was 'your a Canadian?'

"French-Canadian." The red haired woman nodded, a slight smile pulling at her features. 

"You ran away to marry Jamie's father? Why? Because you were pregnant?" The younger girl asked, tilting her head to the left. 

"No. I would have left with him, no matter what." Genevieve snorted slightly though her nose. "Even if I HADN'T have wanted to go." 

"Why?" Catie asked, intrigued. 

"My father was a very...cruel man. My mother left him, when I was just a baby." Genevieve started and then stopped, her face a mask of pain. "I understand why she left, but I truly wish that she had taken me with her." 

"You dad..." Catie started, her voice quaking slightly.

"Beat me. And worse." Genevieve said softly, her eyes dark. 

Catie opened her mouth, and then shut it. What do you say to something like that. "Why...why did you..."

"Tell you?" Genevieve supplied, her mouth curving into something that was not really a smile, but comforting anyway. "Because, when I was your age, I thought I was the only person in the entire world who was going through it. I thought that no one would understand--that I was a freak. And I don't know what has happened to you, Catie, but I think that you needed to know--your not the only one. There are people that understand--people that love you, that want to help. I do. Jamie does. Even the little girls want to. We will help you Catie, whenever you want it. Whenever you can trust enough to ask for it." 

Catie looked down at the table, trying to keep her rolling emotions in check. She took several deep breathes to steady herself, before looking up at Genevieve, and letting a small smile touch her lips. "Thank you." 

Genevieve didn't reply, just smiling slightly sadly. The she shook herself, and lifted an eyebrow. "Now, I suppose that I should get started on dinner--I know how much my children look forward to it!" 

Catie giggled softly, and slowly stood up, her back still aching slightly. "Do you need any help?" 

"Can you cook?" 

"Not really."

Genevieve grinned, her eyes suddenly sparkling. The woman had the most versatile eyes in the world, Catie was sure of it. And she was glad that she had passed those beautiful eyes on to her son. "Good. Grab an apron. Wouldn't do to spoil tradition, right?" 


	7. Scribbles

Disclaimer: Not mine, all Disney's. Wait, that's not right. Jamie isn't mine, and neither is Caitie, but everyone else is! WOW! I have stuff now!! Anyway, this is just a little story that I came up with, thanks to my job (for all of you that don't know, I work at a daycare! :) ) Anyway, this is just a cute little story that fits into my Caitie's Home Life Sucks series, just about anywhere after 'Family Ties'. I hope you like it, and without further ado...

Scribbles

Sami Waite's long red hair swung down over her face, masking her features from the outside world. But if her pretty face HAD been visible, then one would have seen the intense look of concentration that graced her features, the way her light red eyebrows were drawn together, the way he bottom lip was stuck out, and the way that her beautiful dark brown eyes were darker then normal. 

The child sat at the kitchen table of her home, several dozen pieces of white paper with colorful scratching on them surrounding her. An open box of crayons sat beside her, the paper peeled back neatly from the ones that needed it--blue, red, black, brown, and purple being the ones that were almost completely gone. 

Sami kicked her feet as she concentrated, the black crayon held tightly in her tiny fist, her knuckles almost completely white, so hard was her grip on the coloring utensil. Under a puddle of her fire red hair was another piece of plain white paper, this one which the child was busy coloring. 

The soft chiming of the clock announced that it was four o'clock, time for her older siblings to get back from school, but Sami was so intent on her coloring that she didn't notice. She could sort of hear her mother shuffling around in her home office, doing whatever it was that her mother did at home when she wasn't at the cafe, but the little girl wasn't really paying attention. 

The baby of the Waite family was, in fact, so intent on her picture, that she didn't hear the rusty hinges of the kitchen door squeak open, and she missed her older brother, Jamie, peering in at her. The young man was actually off call for today, and was actually sort of bored with all the spare time he had suddenly discovered on his hands. So, being bored, he had decided to peek in on what his littlest sister was doing so intently. 

Grinning, the young man stepped into the room and cupped his hands around his mouth, calling "Sami Waite, what are you doin?" 

Sami jumped a mile, nearly falling out of her seat when her brother startled her. The little girl looked over her shoulder, her long hair falling in front of her face, a smile pulling at her lips. 

"Jamie! What you doing here?" Sami squealed, jumping out of her chair to throw herself at her brother's knees. Jamie picked her up, flipping her upside down as he did so, patting her belly as he did so.

"I do get days off, little bit. What're you doing?" Jamie asked, flipping the baby upright and grinning at his little sister. 

"Coloring." The child told him, her eyes sparkling. 

"Oh really? Can I see?" Jamie asked, jostling the child a little bit on his hip. 

"Yeah!" Sami scrambled out of her brother's lap, collecting the peices of paper that lay haphazardly around the table. When she had them all in a neat stack, she crawled up into her brother's lap, a beautiful toothy smile pulling at her lips. 

Holding up her first picture proudly, Sami pointed to the two stick people with bright red hair she had drawn under a brown square that was missing it's bottom. 

"That's me and Molly playing heidi go seekie." Sami told him, placing the picture on the table and showing him the next one. This one was a stick person with long black hair, her arms above her head. "That one is Jazzy dancin'!" 

"That's very good." Jamie complimented his youngest sister, trying to keep from laughing. However, he couldn't keep a straight face when Sami showed him her next picture, this time depicting a stick figure riding what looked like two circles connected by a line. 

"That's you! Riding you motocycie!" Sami told him happily, her eyes sparkling. 

Jamie chuckled, shaking his head back and forth. "That's very good." 

Sami beamed proudly, before placing that picture along with the other two. Teh next one depicted two red heads again, only one was taller then the other one. The taller one had wiggles and squiggles coming out of her mouth, and Jamie guessed that meant she was either talking or...

"That's Crimmie singing, and me listening!" Sami explained, putting the picture with the rest of them. Now she was down to just two pictures, and the next one Jamie knew right off the bat.

"That's Mere right? Cooking?" Jamie asked, trying very hard not to die laughing at the depiction of a red headed stick woman surrounded by pots and pans with green smoke coming out of them. 

"Yep!" The child replied, smiling again. Then she put that one down, unveiling the picture she had been working so diligently on when he brother had come in. 

In the picture was eight stick figures, four with dark hair and four with red hair. Jamie blinked, and looked down at his sister, trying to figure out who all the people were. The biggest redhead was holding the hand of a black haired stick man, and the other stick man and a dark haired stick girl were holding hands as well, though the littlest red head stick girl had his other hand. Two other stick girls were there with red hair, the second littlest red head holding on to the smaller dark haired girl's hand. The bigger red head had the hand of the little girl that was holding the stick guy's hand. Streaks of color were above them, and they were all smiling. 

Sami smiled, and began pointing out people. "That's me." She pointed at the littlest red head. "That's you." She pointed at the black haired stick man whose hand the little girl was holding. "That's Crimson." She pointed to the red head holding her other hand. "That's Jazzy and Molly." The dark haired girl and the red haired girl holding hands. "That's Mommy." She pointed to the biggest red head. "And that's daddy." She pointed to the man holding the red head's hand. 

Jamie swallowed hard, and kissed the little girl on top of her head, stroking a lock of her hair back. "It's a beautiful picture, Sami. Mere would love it. Are you going to give it to her?"

Sami shook her head, her eyes suddenly glowing. "No, I'm going to take it and give it to Daddy next time we go see him, okay?" 

Jamie smiled back, and hugged the girl. "Okay. I know he'll love it too." 

Sami scampered out of her brother's lap, leaving him holding the picture. Just as she was about to leave to go watch on of her countless cartoons, Jamie called out to her. "Sami? Whose this other dark haired girl?" 

"Oh, that's Caitie." Sami giggled, before running out of the room. 

"SAMI!" 


	8. Where Are You Christmas

Disclaimer: Not mine, all Disney's, but they can't have Jamie's family. :) Anyway, this is the sequel to "For All This We Give Thanks...", and it gets steadily more depressing. Hopefully, this fits, because I wrote this before I wrote the one that comes before it, so it might be lacking. Anyway, I have a snow day tomorrow (I love snow when it gets me out of school!), so I might be able to get "Broken" written then. :) I don't know. The lyrics aren't mine, they belong to Faith Hill. Umm...that's about it. Anyway, without further ado...

Where Are You Christmas? 

The snow was really beginning to pile up out there. Tiny white snowflakes danced from the night sky, the heavy gray clouds masking the twinkling stars and sparkling moon. Nearly half a foot of pure white snow lay on the ground already, and the sky and the weather forecast both claimed that there was no let up in sight. 

Catie Roth trembled slightly, her dark eyes locked on the fire that roared in the fireplace. It wasn't real of course--gas logs made for a less cheerful picture then the real thing, the cynical teenager decided. 

A board in the floor creaked, and her dark eyes flashed away from the fire to scan the darkness that surrounded her, looking for the source of the sound. As far as she knew, she was alone in the house, and that was the way she wanted it. Her parents were off...somewhere, at some party, probably doing something that they would have to confess to their marriage consular at some point in time. 

The sound shot through the darkness again, and Catie swallowed hard, reaching for the baseball bat that she kept next to her when she was alone in the house. Jamie had found out about it a few months ago, and it continued to amuse him to no end. Of course, Catie shut him up by pointing out that she was a lot smaller then he was, and even she didn't get beat up by eight year old girls. 

"Is anybody..." Catie called out into the darkness, her heart thumping against her chest like a jackhammer. 

The door swung open, and the gentle ringing of a little bell caught her attention. Groaning, Catie dropped the bat and settled back against the couch. A few seconds later, a sleek black cat padded into the ring of light and hoped up into her lap, purring contently before he sat down.

"You know, Romeo, you could have been chopped kitty litter if you didn't have that nifty little jingle bell." Catie told the purring feline, running her fingers under his chin and scratching him gently. 

The cat didn't seem bothered by his near death experience, simply blinking his yellow eyes at her once, and laying down completely, his head resting on her hand. Catie shook her head, and continued to stroke the animal, a strange type of melancholy descending on her. 

Was this all her home life was? An empty house with nothing to talk to but a cat? A fake fire and peanut butter sandwiches? Darkness and sadness and no one to protect her but an old bat named Clarence? 

Catie blinked rapidly, and a tear drop slowly made it's way out of the corner of her eye, slipping down her cheek and landing silently on top of Romeo's head. The black cat lifted his face up to look at her, his eyes betraying nothing. 

"Sorry Romeo." Catie whispered to the annoyed feline, reaching up to brush the tear track off of her face. "Didn't mean to get you all wet." 

The cat, as if some how sensing that she needed love at that moment, simply purred, deep in his throat, and leaned into her stomach, rubbing his black body across hers. Catie smiled sadly, and scratched him behind the ears. 

Romeo had actually been a gift to her from Jamie. He had knocked on her door one day, early in the morning, and when she had answered, he had shoved a tiny black kitten in her face, and asked her if she had wanted it. His sister's cat, Titannia, had had a litter of kittens, and his mother had insisted that every single one of them go. He'd seen the black one, and thought she might like it, remembering her comment that she was alone at home quite often. 

She had shaken her head when she saw the mangy looking animal, telling him that she wasn't very good at taking care of animals. But the sad looks on both that kitten and Jamie's faces had been enough to convince her to take the animal. Of course, then came the hard part--finding a name for it. 

Catie had, at first, wanted to name him Jamie, but knew that the human Jamie might not find it as amusing as she did. So she settled for naming the cat after human Jamie's MIDDLE name--Romeo. 

The ringing of the telephone caught Catie's attention, drawing her back to reality. Blinking, she shook herself, and pushed Romeo off her lap, going to pick up the phone. She reached on the third ring, just before the answering machine kicked in.

"Hello?" She asked, pushing a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. 

"Hey...what are you doing?" A deep voice asked her. Catie smiled for the first time all night, before rolling her eyes, recognizing Jamie Waite's voice.

"Solving world hunger with a cat named for a Shakespearian character. And yourself?" 

"And you didn't want to take Romeo. Nothing much--just trying to avoid my little sister's insistent begging that I play the Rudolph song. Again. For the fifth time. This hour." Jamie groaned. 

"The Rudolph song?" Catie asked, confused. She'd never heard it called that before. 

"That's what she calls it. You know that song, Run Rudolph Run?" Jamie asked, lowering his voice a few decibels. 

Catie blinked, and then shook her head. She realized her mistake a few seconds late, and rolled her eyes, and then said, "No, I don't think so." 

"No? Lucky you." Jamie groaned. Then he seemed to shake off his horror at the song, and asking her, "So what else are you doing, besides solving world hunger?" 

"Nothing. Just kinda hanging out." Catie told him, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. 

"Your not busy?" Jamie asked, sounding surprised. 

"Why, what did you think I would be doing?" She wanted to know, a look of confusion crossing her face.

"I mean, your not doing something with your family?" Jamie wanted to know.

"No." Catie responded immediately, wondering what brought that question on. 

"But it's Christmas Eve." 

"So?" 

Jamie was silent on the other end of the phone for a long moment. Catie began to wonder if the phone had died or something, when he spoke up. 

"So, you and your parents are just sitting around the house doing...nothing?" 

"No, I'm sitting around the house doing nothing. My parents are probably out getting wasted somewhere." Catie explained, keeping her tone as level as possible. 

"Oh. How come your not over at...Val's or something?" Jamie asked, and Catie shook her head, even though she knew that Jamie couldn't see her.

"Because I didn't want to intrude on their little family bonding thing." Catie explained calmly, highly amused by Jamie's questions. "Why?" 

"So...your all by yourself?" He sounded upset, Catie realized. Wonder why? 

"Uh...yeah. Isn't that what I just said?" She rolled her eyes, even though she knew that he couldn't see it. "What's your point?" 

"Nothing." Jamie was lying and she knew it. A squeal on the other end of the line made Catie jump in surprise. 

"What was that?" She asked, drawing in a steadying breath. 

"Molly and Sami." Jamie sighed, sounding annoyed. "Their attempting to dress Titannia up in a Mrs. Claus outfit." 

Catie cracked up at the mental picture, her spirits lifting for just a minute. "Now there's something that I would love to see!"

"Trust me, it's not half as amusing as you think it is--or maybe that's just me. Especially since I know that I'm going to be the one to patch all THREE of them up." Jamie groused. 

"Poor baby." Catie mock cooed, making HIM laugh. 

"Pity me." 

"I do." 

Another squeal broke through the phone line, and Catie snickered at Jamie's distressed groan. "Their going to either kill themselves, or that stupid cat!" He sighed, and Catie knew him well enough to picture his grimacing face. "Look, I had better go, before..."

CRASH!

"Oh crap!" Jamie moaned into the phone, making Catie just laugh harder. "I'm glad you find this so amusing!"

"Oh come on Jamie, your sisters are funny!" She defended herself. 

"You wouldn't think so if you had to live with them." Jamie muttered, and Catie began to laugh even harder, tears leaking out of her eyes. 

"Oh, you have no idea how much I did!" She assured him. 

"Yeah...look, I really gotta go. I'll...umm...talk to you later tonight, okay?" Jamie had the worried tone back in his voice, and Catie shook her head, sighing.

"Jamie, I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. Don't worry about me--go have fun with your mom and sisters. And tell them I said hi, okay? Bye." 

"I will. Bye Catie." 

Catie shook her head once more, and pushed the talk button on her phone, a loneliness she was use to feeling descending on her again. Before she could stop it, another tear trickled down her cheek, and she reached up to brush it away quickly, even though there was no one there to see her cry. 

"Pull it together, Roth. Just like you told Jamie, you've been alone before. You can handle it." 

But right at that moment, she didn't want to handle it. She wanted to be laughing and joking with a family, her family. She wanted the love and tenderness that she saw in Jamie's eyes when he complained about his siblings, she wanted the bond that Brooke and Val had. 

She wanted a family.

That was it.

Was that so much to ask?  


"Is it?" Catie asked thin air, her heart breaking in her chest. "Is it to much to want a family, one night out of the entire fucking year?!" 

Sobs tore at the back of her throat, and ripped themselves free, filling the silent room with her misery. Shaking, Catie laid down on the couch, tugging a blanket up around her shoulders, and wishing that the gas logs would catch the house on fire and it would burn down, with her inside of it. 

"I hate Christmas. I hate my family. I hate my life." These words raced through her head like a mantra, as tears poured down her face. "Where the hell is the 'joy' that this time of year is suppose to bring?" 

She continued to weep, her heart broken into a thousand pieces. She was a failure, at everything she did--as a daughter, as a friend, as a human being. 

"I wish I was dead." Catie whispered out loud, trembling. "I really do." 

Her broken hearted sobs filled the dark house again, until finally, she cried herself in to a fitful sleep. 

*****

She was running. Running from something, something, but she didn't know what. Her heart banged against her chest, and she continued to run, her legs pumping and sweat trickling down her face. 

Blackness loomed behind her, and a soft glowing white light shone at her in front. If she could just reach the light, she would be alright. 

But some one kept moving the light further and further away from her, and she sobbed, reaching out questing fingers for the light, longing for it, but knowing that it would never be hers. 

"Please..." she whimpered, still racing for the elusive light. "PLEASE..." 

But the light refused her, disappearing into the shadows of the all consuming darkness, and plunging her into utter blackness and despair. 

"NOOOO!!" She screamed into the void, her voice echoing back to her. "please...no..." 

She looked down at the cold stone ground, dropping to her knees and bowing her head, tears rolling down her face. She was lost, lost in the void, and the light had, obviously refused her. 

"Why?" She whispered. "Why? Don't leave me here...please some one...help me..."

"Catie?" A voice, full of warmth and love reached her in the blackness, and she lifted her head her eyes, searching for the source of the voice. "Catie?" 

"Who..." She asked, the blackness around her seeming to blur and fade away, leaving her floating in shadows. "Who is.." 

Catie was suddenly jerked back to reality fiercely, shaking her to her very core. Her eyes popped open, and she found herself looking into the warmest brown eyes that she had ever seen. Her heart banging against her chest, and her eyes, to her horror, filling with tears, Catie reached out for the first human being she had seen all day. 

"Jamie..." 

"Hey." He whispered to her, capturing her hands in his and pulling them against his heart. "Are you okay?" 

"Why...why wouldn't I be okay?" Catie breathed, her eyes sparkling with fresh tears. Jamie kept one of his large hands pressed over her much smaller ones, and reached out the other one to wipe a single tear drop off her face. 

"You were crying in your sleep." Jamie told her softly, his beautiful dark eyes worried. 

Catie winced, and asked the first thing that popped into her head. "How long have you been here?" 

"About fifteen minutes." Jamie told her gently, brushing the tip of one of his index finger across her high cheekbone. Catie shivered at his gentle touch, wondering what was going through his mind, and what she must look like to him.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with your 'loved ones'?" Catie asked, trying to cover her anxiety up with a smart remark. 

"I am." Jamie told her simply, a ghost of a smile playing across his beautiful mouth. Catie looked down, and blushed, her cheeks blossoming with color. His smile grew for a second, and he touched her cheek gently. "Come on. There a bunch of other people that love you that are waiting for you." 

"Like who?" Catie asked, relying on her cynical nature to get her through. 

"Like my mom, and Jazz, and Crimson, and Molly, and ESPECIALLY Sami." Jamie grinned at her, tugging her to her feet. 

"Jamie...I don't know..." Catie protested as Jamie drug her toward the closet where she kept her heavy winter jacket. 

"Oh, come on! Do it for me?" Jamie pleaded, looking at her with his huge brown eyes, a slight pout on his face. "I want you too..."

"Because you feel sorry for me?" Catie challenged. 

"Nope. Because I lo--want you to be at my house for Christmas. Please? We can tease my little sisters by making them think that Santa Claus got stuck in the chimney!" Jamie begged, reaching the closet, and opening it, pulling out her dark jacket and thrusting it at her.

"That's mean." Catie snickered, her eyes dancing. 

"But you have no idea how fun." Jamie assured her, his dark eyes pleading. Catie took one look into those soulful chestnut eyes, and folded. 

"Alright, fine." Catie tried to complain, but let him slip the jacket onto her shoulders as he beamed at her, his white teeth flashing in his face. 

"Good. Let's go. Mom's going to be worried." Jamie informed her, and took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. Catie shook her head, her dark hair swinging. 

"Alright, alright, I'm coming." She zipped up her jacket, and allowed Jamie to tug her out the door. 

The snow had continued to fall, and now there was something like eight to ten inches on the ground. Catie nearly slipped on the ice on the front porch, but Jamie caught her just in time, his long arms wrapping around her securely. 

"Thanks." Catie murmured to him, looking into his eyes. Her face was just a few inches away from his...all she would have to do is lean in and...

"No problem." Jamie murmured, setting her down on the steps and moving away from her, and reaching up to rub the back of his head. 

Catie looked around the driveway, and then blinked, a half smile pulling at her lips. "Where's your bike?" 

"Mom wouldn't let me drive it." Jamie groused shoving his hands in his pockets. Catie blinked, and looked up at him following easily into step with him as they walked down the street.

"You mean you walked here? In the snow?" 

"Well...yeah." Jamie shrugged--he obviously didn't think it was a very big deal. "I did. So?" 

"Just to come and get me, to drag me to your house?" Catie question him, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"Yep." Jamie allowed.

"Your crazy, you know that?" Catie told him firmly.

"I know." He beamed at her, his beautiful dark eyes shining in the glow of the streetlight.

Catie laughed, and shook her head, following him down the street. The snow fall had slowed down, so only tiny white flakes drifted from the sky, swirling and dipping like little crystal fairies. The snowflakes landed in Jamie's hair, and contrasted sharply with his black hair and the pure whiteness of the snow. Catie blinked and stared at the picture he made, a slight smile pulling at her lips. He noticed her gaze a minute later, lifting an eyebrow.

"What?" 

"You have snow in your hair." Catie told him, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and turning to face him, a slight smile pulling at her lips.

Jamie blinked, and ran his fingers through dark hair, and chuckled, low in his throat. He gazed at Catie for a second, swallowing hard as he looked at her. The snow had also fallen in her hair, and now clung to the long strands stubbornly, looking like tiny diamonds laced through her hair. 

"Yeah, well, you do too." Jamie informed her, fighting a blush. 

"I do?" Catie lifted a hand to her hair, and touching her dark locks. Sure enough, her fingers came away wet, and she giggled in a very un-Catie like manner. "Oh well." 

"Yeah." Jamie murmured, gluing his eyes to the floor, and refusing to look up, for fear that his emotions would be given away by the expression in his eyes. "Come on, before mom sends out a search party." 

The young couple continued to walk down the street silently, their steps crunching on the icy sidewalk. Jamie had not yet dropped Catie's hand, and the warmth of his fingers around hers was enough to make her shiver slightly. 

The Christmas lights painted the white snow a multitude of different colors, making it look like they were walking through a rainbow. Catie blinked at one particular house, decked out in more lights then she had ever seen. 

"Really in the Christmas spirit there..." Catie whispered to Jamie, gesturing to the house with their interlaced hands. Jamie looked to where she was pointing, and snorted. 

"Tell me about it. Can you believe that my mom actually WANTED to do that? Can we say tacky?" Jamie murmured in her ear, his lips one centimeters away from her ear. Catie bit back a laugh as the twosome continued down the road, fast approaching Jamie's home. 

"You guys didn't, did you?" Catie wondered, grinning at his horror struck face. 

"Your joking right? *I'm* the one that would have had to string them up--of course we didn't!" 

Catie giggled at his comment, his house coming into view. True to his word, Jamie's house was not rigged with a vast multitude of lights. In fact, only a few strands of soft white lights adorned the porch and surrounding bushes. 

"Now that's pretty." Catie complimented him, making Jamie beam happily at her. 

"Thank you, thank you. I'm glad that you like it." The twosome made their way up the stairs, and pushed open the door, as beautiful piano music, bright lights and warm air washed over them like a flood. 

"Wow...that's..." Before Catie could compliment the music, a lovely voice began to sing. 

__

Where are you Christmas? 

Why can't I find you? 

Why have you gone away? 

Where is the laughter, you used to bring me? 

Why can't I hear music play? 

My world is changing, I'm rearranging. 

Does that mean Christmas changes too?

"Who?" Catie squeaked softly, looking up at Jamie. A slight smile pulled at his lips, and he looked down at her, his dark eyes shining.

"My mom." 

"She's...awesome." Catie could have kicked herself for her word choice. That wasn't what she had meant to say--she had meant to say something witty and intelligent, not 'awesome'. But Jamie grinned, and tugged her forward, toward the source of the music. 

"I know she is." 

Where are you Christmas? 

Do you remember the one you used to know? 

I'm not the same one, see what the times done. 

Is that why you have let me go?

Jamie reached the door, and pushed it open, a slight grin pulling at his lips. Catie peeked around his shoulder and smiled at the sight that greeted her. 

Genevieve Waite sat at the piano, her brilliant red hair down around her shoulders and nearly falling to her waist, playing the instrument with long fingers. Catie watched her hands for a moment, before looking down at the hand that held hers tightly. Jamie had gotten his hands from his mother too. 

Jamie's four younger sisters were spread out around her, listening intently as their mother sang the words of a song Catie had never heard before. Jazz, the only dark-haired girl of the group, was leaning against the back of the piano, her head propped up on one hand, watching her mother with a slight grin on her face. Crimson, the second oldest, was standing behind her mother, reading the lyrics of the song off the sheet music in front of her mother. The two littlest girls, Molly and Sami, were sitting on either side of their mother, Sami's bright red head resting against her mother's arm. 

Christmas is here. everywhere, oh.

Christmas is here, if you care, oh. 

If there is love in your heart and your mind, 

You will feel like Christmas all the time.

Genevieve turned her eyes away from the music in front of her, her skillfully hands still caressing the piano keys. Her welcoming smile surprised and comforted Catie in ways she had never thought possible. 

__

I feel you Christmas. 

I know I've found you. you never fade away. 

The joy of Christmas, stays here in silence, 

Fills each and every heart with love. 

Where are you Christmas? 

Fills your heart with love...

The red haired woman finished the song, ending with a gentle crescendo. Jamie, his sisters, and Catie all exploded into applause, making Genevieve laugh and half-bow from her seat, before turning mischievous brown eyes on the couple in the doorway. 

"Uh oh..." Catie whispered to Jamie.

"What?" He murmured back, looking at his mother in worry.

"I've seen that look before. I think we're going to get something pulled on us..." 

"What do you mean, you've seen that look before?" 

"That's the same look you get on your face when your up to something." 

"Uh oh..." 

"Hi you two!" Jamie's mother beamed at them, her dark eyes still glittering. 

"Umm...hey mom." Jamie said, shifting uncomfortably.

"Yeah, um, hi." Catie really wanted to know why Jamie's mother was looking at her like that. Just then Jazz started to laugh, and Crimson smirked at them, her dark eyes sparkling. However, it was Sami that clued her older brother and his friend into what was so funny.

"Hey, Mommy, is I gonna find out NOW why you hung that flower over the door?" 

Catie and Jamie exchanged a panicked look, and then forced themselves to look up. Hanging smugly above them was a sprig of....mistletoe. 

"MOM!" 


	9. Broken

Disclaimer: Not mine, all Disney's---except for Jamie's family, Catie's family and Lonnie. the lyrics I used in this story at the end is "Breathing" by Lifehouse, one of my newest favorite songs! Sorry that this took me SO LONG to get out--I had writer's block on it, and then I didn't have any time to finish it, and it was one thing after another, but I finally have it finished, and I hope that you like it! And I really hope that it's worth the wait, and the length (This baby is almost 17 pages long!) makes up a little for the amount fo time you had to wait! Anyway, be on the look out for the final three stories of this sequence: "A Mother's Pray", "Gone, But Not Forgotten" and "Everything". Anyway, without further ado...

Broken 

"MAY ALL THE 'QUANTINCE BE FORGOT, MAY ALL THE FLAGS NOT WAVE, MAY...ummm...somethin', somethin, SOMETHIN---and AULD LANG SAL!" A little voice screaming at the top of her voice greeted Catie Roth the morning of New Year's Eve, as she stood on the front porch of Jamie Waite's house. 

The young woman struggled to muffle a giggle, but the laughter refused to be held in check, and bubbled out of her in a flood. She clapped a hand over her mouth, strangled guffaws attempting to escape. Catie swallowed hard, snorting through her nose, and tried to get a hold of herself. It wasn't very polite to knock on someone else's door, while laughing hysterically at what was going on inside. 

However, before Catie could get a handle on her laughter, the door was slung open, and the source of the loud singing was in front of her, long red hair swinging and big brown eyes sparkling. 

"Catie! Hi!" Samantha Desdemona Waite, better known as Sami, crowed, throwing herself out the door and hugging the older girl around the legs. Suddenly, she shrieked and giggled, dancing in place and holding her hands up to Catie. "Cold! Cold! Cold!"

Catie laughed out loud this time, scooping the wiggling child up and holding her on her hip, kissing her lightly on the top of the head. "That's what happens when you come outside without any shoes on."

"Dat's what Jamie says too." Sami mused, her eyes thoughtful. 

"Maybe you'd better listen to Jamie. He's pretty smart--you know, for a guy." Catie laughed, her eyes sparkling as she stepped inside the Waites's home. 

"Yeah, SURE he is..." Crimson Waite muttered, walking into the foyer just in time to hear Catie's comment. "That's just cause you don't live with him."

"You know, it's generally accepted as a bad idea to diss your older brother when he's standing right behind you, can hear every word you're saying, is bigger then you, and has no qualms about throwing your cute little red headed BUTT out into the snow." Jamie Waite's voice filled the room, and Crimson almost winced. 

"Yeah well, it's okay...when you can out RUN said older brother!" Crimson ended with a shriek, taking off a dead sprint, her fire engine red hair sailing out behind her. 

"Come back here you little monster!" Jamie growled playfully, exploding out of the other room and racing across the foyer, flashing a beautiful smile at Catie as he darted past. 

Catie winced when she heard a crash and a shriek, and then laughed. Sami blinked at Catie in confusion, her question written plainly on her little face: What's so funny?

"Hey, I'm not use to Jamie acting like that." Catie laughed at the little girl, shifting her around on her hip. At that moment, Genevieve floated through the doorway, grinning at Catie, her dark eyes glimmering mischievously. 

"Hi Catie. I thought I heard your voice. Jamie's..." 

Another crash cut her off, followed quickly by two simultaneous cries of "OOH, LOOK WHAT YOU DID!"

"Chasing his little sister around the house." Catie finished for Jamie's mother, grinning at the suddenly annoyed worried look that danced across the older woman's face. 

"What was that?! And was it expensive?!" Genevieve rolled her eyes at Catie, and pushed through the door, heading toward the source of the sound. 

"Umm...define 'expensive'..." Jamie sheepish voice filled the air, and Catie just barely managed to hold in her laughter, a choking sound emerging from her throat. 

At that moment, the door was pushed open, and Jamie's two remaining younger sisters, Molly and Jazz, walked through the door, Molly cradling the baby doll she had gotten from Christmas carefully. Both girls smiled at Catie when they saw her, and she couldn't help but smile back. 

"My baby's asleep." Molly informed Catie solemnly, her dark brown eyes sober. Catie nodded her head, and let the smile slide off her face. 

"Then we had better not wake her up." 

"Yeah, SAMI." Molly glared at her little sister, and Sami looked up at Catie with big brown eyes as if to say 'I didn't do anything.'

"Did you wake up her baby?" Catie teased the little girl in her arms, leaning forward to press her forehead against the young girl's. 

"Uh huh! I didn't wake the baby up--Jamie did!" Sami blamed her older brother, her eyes round and dark in her face. "Not me! Jamie! Jamie did it!" 

"Jamie did what?" The young man in question asked, wondering into the room at that moment to hear his sister blaming him for something. 

"Jamie, did you wake up Molly's baby?" Catie smirked at her friend, looking over Sami's head and winking at him. 

"Me? Do something like that? I would never!" Jamie gasped in mock horror, clapping his hands over his chest. 

His younger sisters cracked up, and Catie just shook her head, amused by the drastic differences between the Jamie at school and the home-Jamie. If you had asked her three months ago if she thought that Jamie Waite, the school's resident bad boy, would have four little sisters that he absolutely doted on, she would have laughed in your face, then wondered what kind of drugs you were on. 

Now...she just couldn't look at Jamie in the same light. Now, whenever she looked at him, no matter what he was doing, she saw the young man that taught Crimson to play the guitar, and carried Sami on his shoulders, and teased Jazz about running off her dates when she got older, and kept a picture Molly had colored for him on his bedroom wall, and a million other little things. 

Of course, she was the only one that noticed the difference in him--she still heard Val, Tyler and Hank complain about his 'lack of responsibility' from time to time. And none of their friends under the bleachers saw it--the only thing they saw of Jamie was his leather jacket and often times bad attitude. 

"So, what you break?" Catie asked, once the younger girls had calmed down, and Jamie grinned at her sheepishly, running his hand over his hair. 

"Just a lamp." 

"An ugly one to boot." Crimson informed Catie, coming in the room in time to hear her brother's comment. 

"It WAS ugly." Their mother mused, as she walked into the foyer right behind Crimson. "Sam's parents gave it to us when we got married--I always HATED it, but Sam never would let me get rid of it. Heck, I even tried to get the kids to break it, and they never would." 

Catie giggled, rolling her eyes. Genevieve caught her expression and grinned, her eyes sparkling. 

"I don't think she believes me Jamie!" The woman laughed, shaking her head. Her son grinned as well, running his fingers through his hair again. 

"It's true. She asked me and Jazz once if we would mind bumping into the table and knocking it off. Then, when we wouldn't, she tried to bribe us with cookies. Dad caught her at the point, and was real thrilled with her about it, if I remember." Jamie reminisced, making the women in the room laugh. 

"No, he wasn't. Even though HE hated that lamp too." Jazz remembered, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. 

"Oh Lord, yes he did. But his mother had given it to us, so of course he couldn't let anything happen to it." Genevieve shook her head, a dreamy look overcastting her dark eyes. However, she shook it off, turning her attention back to Catie. "Are you coming over tonight, for New Year's?" 

"Yes!" Sami answered for her, wiggling out of Catie's arms and jumping up and down like a redheaded Mexican Jumping bean. "Please? Please please? New Year's Eve is the bestest holiday! Even better then Christmas!" 

"Why is she so excited about New Years?" Catie asked Jamie, blinking in confusion. Jamie chuckled, and shook his head. 

"It's the one night of the year that she gets to stay up past her bedtime. To her that's something to be excited about." Jamie rolled his eyes, still chuckling. 

Catie giggled as well, looking at the excited little girl in amusement. "Sure I'll be here." 

"Oh good--then you can kiss Jamie at midnight!" Jazz piped up and her older brother turned blood red while Catie blushed as well. The younger girls giggled, and Catie could see that even Genevieve was struggling to keep from laughing as well. 

"Yeah, and nothing like that little kiss beneath the mistletoe!" Crimson put in her two cents as well. "We want to see a REAL kiss, with tongue and stuff!" 

"Eeewww...who would want Jamie's tongue in their mouth?" Molly asked, making a face. Crimson didn't say anything, but she simply gave Catie a pointed look, and the black haired girl put her hands up over her face, suddenly understanding what Jamie meant when he complained about his sisters.

"CRIMSON!" Jamie yelled at his sister, his face getting even redder then it had before. Catie could feel her own face burning as well, and she laughed nervously. 

"I'm going home. I'll see you guys later on tonight!" She told them, still blushing furiously. 

"Alright, bye honey. See you tonight." Genevieve WAS laughing now, her eyes sparkling like her son's did when he was getting into trouble. 

"What time?" Catie asked, her face losing some of the heat that had built up inside of it

"Anytime--maybe around five? Four thirty?" 

"Why don't you just not leave? Jamie will MISS you if your gone!" Now, it appeared, Molly had joined in the teasing. 

"That's it--I am going to shove every single one of you in a closet and then lock the door and not let you out--ever." Jamie threatened, and Sami squeaked indignantly. 

"I not DONE anything!" 

"Fine--I'm going to lock YOU THREE in a closet and not let you out. Maybe my closet--I haven't done laundry in a couple of days..." 

"EEEEEEWWWWWW!!!" The older three girls screamed, and as one, raced off in three different directions. 

"That really is inhuman torture Jamie." Catie teased the fuming young man, laughing at his expression. 

"I'm going to wring their necks as soon as I catch them." Jamie swore, his eyes spitting dark fire. He stomped off, leaving Sami, Genevieve and Catie in the room alone. 

"Oh dear--I really ought to stop the girls from teasing their POOR big brother so unmercifully." Genevieve rolled her eyes, a smile pulling at her lips. 

"I know--poor baby." Catie agreed, giggling. "I really should go--tell them I said bye, okay?" 

"No problem. See you tonight." Genevieve agreed, walking out of the room to go finish cleaning up the rest of the ugly lamp, leaving Catie and Sami alone. Catie smiled at the little girl, and waved goodbye. As she turned to leave, however, Sami spoke up. 

"Are you REALLY gonna kiss Jamie at midnight?" She asked, running forward and wrapping her arms around Catie's legs. 

"Ummm...I don't know. Maybe. If he wants me too." Catie could feel her cheeks glowing red for the second time that night. 

Sami beamed up at her, her eyes sparkling. "Don't worry, him does. Bye!"  


"Wait a minute, what do you mean him does?" Catie called after the little girl, but she had already skipped out of the room, her red hair bouncing. 

The dark haired girl hmphed to herself, reaching back to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. A slightly smiled pulled at her lips as she thought about the young child's words, and steadily grew the more she thought about it. 

Beaming in a very uncharacteristic manner, Catie pulled the door of Jamie's house open and turned her feet toward home, crossing her fingers that her parents would already be gone to the countless parties they were more then likely going to frequent tonight. 

The dark haired girl made her way home slowly, allowing herself to daydream about tonight and the possibility of kissing Jamie tonight as the clock rang in 2001. It made her far more happy then it really ought to, the girl thought to herself, but for a change, she wasn't going to fight it. At least, not tonight. 

After all, it was just one night. 

@-}--}--- 

Her parent's cars were still in the driveway when Catie got home. She silently cursed her luck, considering turning around and heading back to Jamie's house. AS soon as that thought crossed her mind, she cursed herself for being a coward. 

'Your going to go in there, get a shower, get dressed, maybe even eat something, and THEN your going to go back to Jamie's house. Not before. You can do this--they more then likely won't even notice that your their, and you can get ready in peace.' Catie gave herself a mental pep talk, before running her fingers through her hair, steeling her nerves and heading up the driveway. 

She pushed the door open, thank Heaven that it didn't squeak anymore. Jamie had noticed it the one time he had been over her house, and told her how she could stop it from doing that. It made sneaking in and out much easier, Catie had realized, and had jokingly told Jamie so. He had, however, been completely serious when he told her that was the point. 

Catie shook her head, pulling herself out of her thoughts, and slowly made her way up the stairs. She was half way up them, with a sense of foreboding settled over her. She tried to shake it off, telling herself that it was nothing, she was just jumpy. 

She reached the top of the steps, looked up, and nearly screamed. 

Her father loomed over her, his face half hidden by shadows. She could smell the stink of alcohol rolling off him in waves. Catie's heart began banging in her ears, and twisting in fear. She sent a silent prayer to whomever was listening that he would just let her past, and not...

"Where have you been, you little bitch?" His words slurred together, his face once again twisted in an expression that Catie had come to associate with pure evil. 

"I was...I was..." Catie stuttered, her eyes widening with the fear that always stuck close to her heart and mind whenever she was in this house. 

"You was you was where?! Are you that damn stupid, you don't even know where you were?!" The man snarled, and Catie took a step back, visibly trembling. Her father's hand flashed out, fast then a drunk man really ought to be able to move, and grabbed her arm, twisting it until she thought she heard something snap. He yanked her forward until his liquor saturated breath was on her face, and she bite back the whimper that wanted to break free from her lips. "WELL?!"

"I was...I was at a friend's house!" He twisted her broken arm when she stuttered, and Catie ended her statement with a wail of pain. 

"A FRIEND?! You have a FRIEND?! I don't believe THAT! You're to much of an obnoxious little bitch to have a FRIEND." Mr. Roth laughed in her face, his eyes sparkling with drunken glee. 

"I am...not..." Catie opened her mouth to defend herself from his verbal assault, but the only reward she received for her efforts was a slap across the mouth, knocking her off her feet, so she was only upright thanks to the pressure her father had on her horribly twisted arm. 

"Yes you are!" The man screamed in her face, and Catie cringed and then moaned when he dropped her onto the floor. Mr. Roth, not satisfied with just throwing his only child to the ground, then preceded to kick her in the ribs, until he felt bone break under his brutal attack. 

Catie struggled to hold in her screams of agony--she knew from experience that that would only make it worse for her. 

"Say it you little bitch! Say 'I'm an obnoxious little bitch!'!" Her father taunted her, grabbing her hair and pulling her head back so that she was looking in his face. 

"I'm...an...ob...noxsiou...s...li'l...bitch..." Catie choked out, blood running down her chin and staining her teeth. 

The man grinned at her then, lifting her off the ground and onto her feet by her hair. She screamed, then, the agony to much for her to bare. She saw her father's eyes flair with angry, and she tried to hold the scream that was bubbling at the back of her throat back. But the twisting of his hands in her hair, ripping handfuls of it out, was to much, and she opened her mouth to cry out again. 

She was never given the chance. With drunken strength, her father reared back, and threw her limp body away from him. 

He forgot--or, more likely, didn't care--that they were standing at the top of the stairs. 

Catie's small body flew down the staircase, landing about halfway down them, and she rolled the rest of the way, hitting the hard floor with a thump. She lay, face down, rapidly losing consciousness. 

Her last thought was of Jamie's dark brown eyes, and the way they always sparkled and shone when he was around his family. 

@-}--}---

"It's six o'clock. What time did you tell her to come over mom?" Jamie asked Genevieve, peering out the window for the tenth time in the last three minutes. 

"I told you--four thirty or five. Maybe she's just running late." His mother shook her head at her son, slightly amused by his antics.

"Mom...are you SURE? I mean, it's not like Catie to be late, especially over here. Hell, she's normally over here before I'm up!" Jamie was worried that much was certain. 

"Watch your language." Genevieve reprimanded him, and he winced. 

"Sorry." Jamie apologized, even though his mind was a million miles away. "I'm going over to check on her. Something's wrong." 

"JAMIE! I think your just being paranoid." His mother laughed, rolling her eyes. 

"Mom--I'm not kidding!" Jamie growled, and his mother's laughter died in her throat. She stared at her son for a long second, her lips pulling into a frown. 

"You really think something happened to her don't you? You think her parents..." Genevieve trailed off, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach. Mentally, she kicked herself for forgetting what kind of home Catie came from, for even an instant. "Go. NOW."

Jamie was already running to this bike before her words died away. 

Swinging his leg over the bike, he started it, not even bothering with his helmet. He peeled out of the driveway, sending some loose gravel flying as he tore through the streets, intent on getting to Catie's house as quickly as he could. However, he couldn't push his bike as fast as he wanted to go, and the seconds crawled by like hours as he drove faster then he had in a long, long time. 

It normally took him somewhere around eight minutes to get to Catie's house on his bike. Today he reached in in a little over three. 

Shutting the engine down, he noted that Catie's parents cars were gone, and he crossed his fingers, hoping that she was just running late, and that she was inside now, looking at the window and laughing at the worried expression on his face. 

However, a mental image of her bleeding and broken on the floor refused to leave his mind, and he raced up to the door, his long legs eating up the space between him and his best friend like acid eats through wood. He ripped the door open, not even bothering to knock, and raced inside, leaving the wooden door banging in the wind. 

"Catie!?" He called into the inhumanly still house. "Catie, where are you!?" 

'Please let her be in the shower, or asleep, or at Val's, please please please...' 

"Catie!?" Jamie screamed again, moving into the hallway way where the stairs up to the second floor were. "Catie...CATIE!!" 

It was worse then anything he had ever seen before in his life. 

Catie, his Catie, lay on her stomach a few feet away from the stairs, blood staining the carpet around her head, making it look like she was surrounded by a bright red halo. Her arm was twisted at an impossible angle, and Jamie could see the bruises on her face. Her eyes were shut, and a dark purple bruise kept the one he could see swollen shut. 

He stood there, shell shocked, for an instant more, before his EMT training kicked in, and he leapt forward, dropping to his knees beside her, his fingers going automatically to her neck to search for a pulse. Her soft skin slid gently across his rough fingers, and he felt, to his relief, a light, to light, thump thump against his fingertips. 

She was breathing, he could tell now that he was this close to her, but her eyes were still closed, and their was blood clotted in her hair. He felt sick to his stomach. 

"Catie..." He whispered to her, trying to wake her up. She didn't move, and Jamie's heart lurched. "Oh Catie..." 

For a second, he just stared at her beaten form, hating himself and her parents and the rest of the world for letting this beautiful girl be hurt to the point that she was now. He reached out to touch her hair gently, pushing a lock of it away from her face, and had to fight back the tears that threatened to spill over. Now was not the time to cry--he had to focus solely on Catie right now. 

"I'll be right back." He whispered to her unconscious form, before moving to the phone that he saw resting on the small table under a mirror a few feet away from where Catie was laying. Scooping up the phone he punched in 911. 

"Hello, what's your emergency?" A female voice asked on the other end. 

"My friend's unconscious--it looks like she was either thrown or fell down a flight of steps. She also bleeding from somewhere on her head, I don't know where. I...I don't know how long she's been like this. Hurry, please." Jamie barked at the woman.

"Where are you?" 

"2200 Maple Street--it's a white two story house. Hurry!" Jamie pleaded with the woman again, before hanging up the phone and heading back to Catie. 

He was afraid to move her--he didn't know if she has sustained any spinal injuries from her fall, so he sat beside her, holding her hand and whispering whatever came to mind. Thankfully, the wail of sirens soon filled his ears, and he let go of her hand, running to the door to let the paramedics in. 

Silently, he thanked God that the squad was off today. He didn't think that Val could handle seeing her best friend in such a state--and he didn't want to have to explain what had happened to her either. 

The two men that came to the door were professionals--paramedics, a younger one with light blonde hair and blue eyes and a more seasoned one with dark eyes and hair with a goatee. Jamie let them in, swallowing hard as they knelt down to examine his best friend with their cold, almost completely uncaring eyes. 

"Looks like she sustained some head trauma. Possible internal bleeding and back injury. Get a backboard and a collar from the ambulance." The dark haired man informed the younger one, studying Catie calmly. 

Jamie swallowed hard again, running his fingers through his hair. As the younger man left, Jamie looked at the older paramedic, his eyes terrified. 

"Is she going to be alright?" He was surprised at how stricken and broken his voice sounded. 

"She should be--but she's going to be a long time recovering. Are you the one who found her?" The older man asked, eyeing Jamie carefully, before looking back at his patient.

"Uh...yeah." Jamie cleared his throat, running his fingers through his hair, trying to control his trembling knees. Catie was going to be alright, hopefully. 

"Any idea what happened?" The man asked, just as the blonde paramedic came back with the equipment to move Catie. 

"I...I don't know. She was suppose to come over to my house tonight, and when she wasn't there when she said she was going to be, I got worried and came over to check on her--and I..." Jamie trailed off, his eyes locking on Catie's face, the first time he had seen all of it, as the two men lifted her up and laid her back on the board. Her face was pale, and blood was smeared across one cheek, presumably from the fat lip she had sustained, from the fall or from sometime before, he couldn't be sure. But the one thing about her face that shattered his heart, was the terror and pain that was still etched there, even though she was unconscious. "Catie..." 

"Are you her boyfriend?" The blond paramedic asked him, as she was wheeled out of the house and toward the ambulance, Jamie hurrying behind her. 

So intent was the dark haired young man, that he didn't hear the question properly, and answered with a mumbled "Yeah..." his eyes still locked on the young woman's face. 

Slowly, the two men loaded Catie into the back of the ambulance, and shut the doors. Jamie swallowed hard, watching at they hurried around the back, and climbed into the front, the white and red vehicle taking off with the squeal of tires and flashing red and white lights. He stood stock still for a long second, watching the ambulance roar out of sight, his heart hammering in his chest. 

Catie. His Catie, was in the back of that screaming emergency help vehicle, broken and hurt and unconscious and...he couldn't even began to imagine. His heart clenched like a fist in his chest, and he pressed his hand against it, as if trying to will the organ to release. Catie. Catie. Catie. 

Her name chanted in his brain like the thumping of a heartbeat, the image of her battered form rising in his mind's eye and burning itself into his retinas. As long as he lived, he was never going to forget her laying there, on her stomach, blood pooling around her like water spilled from a bucket. 

Catie. Catie. Catie. 

Somehow, he never would know, somehow he managed to make it to the hospital alive. He raced across the parking lot, the soles of his boots slapping against the concrete and his long legs eating up the distance between him and Catie. 

He hit the glass double doors that separated the cold, white sterile rooms from the rest of the world, his boots squeaking on the shiny tile. His heartbeat banged in his ears and he pushed his way toward the receptionists desk, his breathing fast and labored, and not from the run from the parking lot to the blindingly white room where he now stood. 

Jamie skidded to a stop in front of fake marble desk, steadying himself by placing his palms on the table. The receptionist was an older, friendly looking African-American woman, dressed in the light colored scrubs that everyone, no matter what their position in the hierarchy of the hospital was, seemed to wear. She was turned, with her back to him, typing on a computer, her fingernails making a click clack sound on the keyboard. The young man took a deep shuddering breathe, and was about to call out to the woman, when she spun around in her swivel chair and smiled at him, a beautiful smile with lots of bright white teeth. 

"What can I do for you?" She asked cheerfully, reaching for a manila folder that rested on a stack of papers. The woman, whose nametag read 'Lonnie', looked at him a second time, and then blinked. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" 

Jamie ignored her second question, trying to focus his thoughts enough to make his mouth work well enough to ask about Catie. He took another breath, and curled his hands around the edge of the fo-marble top, gripping so tightly that his knuckles turned white. 

"My friend--she was brought in just a little while ago...Catie Roth? Is there...I mean, can you find out..." Jamie trailed off helpless, fighting the lump in his throat. Lonnie, noting his distress, bit her lower lip, and turned back to her computer, pressing a few keys. Jamie watched the screen change, and then beep. Lonnie scanned it for a few seconds, then twirled back around to face him. 

"Your friend's still in surgery right now." 

"Surgery?" Jamie whispered, the words shattering his heart like a sledgehammer to a china plate. 

"Yeah. She had some severe internal bleeding that they had to fix, due to her broken ribs. She was in a bad way when they brought her in. That's all I know right now, and I can't release any information to anyone but her family.. " Lonnie explained, reaching up to brush a lock of hair out of her face. With each word she said, the blood seemed to drain even more out of Jamie's face, turning his naturally pale complexion almost translucent.

"Her family's the reason that's she's here." Jamie whispered, his entire body shaking like a leaf.

Lonnie blinked, and lifted her eyebrows. "Abuse? Thought that might be the case." At Jamie's surprised look, the cocoa-skinned woman let a small, sad smile touch her lips. "When you've seen as much of it as I have, you learn to recognize the signs." 

The young man nodded, lifting his hand to his eyes, covering them from sight. For a moment, Lonnie thought he was crying, and she reached for the tissues that she always kept close at hand. However, Jamie dropped his hand, and looked her dead in the eye. 

Lonnie Truman had been working in the Kingsport City Hospital for nearly fifteen years. She was pretty much convinced that she had seen everything--unfortunately, it all seemed to blur and run together, as she dealt with all manner of people in pain and mourning. There were very few people that she could pick out and remember, accept those that were here often. 

However, for five years now, a single image had been imprinted in her mind, and she knew that, no matter how long she lived, or how much she saw, she would never ever forget it. The picture of a little boy, twelve maybe, whose father had just died. He was with his mother, a woman's whose face she couldn't recall. In fact, she couldn't remember the little boy all that clearly--except for his eyes. Beautiful, amazingly dark brown eyes, with the hint of what could have been starlight burning in them, dripping with tears and framed by long lashes, tiny droplets of water clinging to them. Those heartbreaking eyes had been painted on her heart for years--and tonight, she found herself looking into them again.

"If you wait over there, I'll let you know how she is."

Jamie swallowed hard, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair, nodding his thanks, because he didn't think he could speak. He slowly turned away from the desk, stumbling over his own feet as he did so, and headed toward the waiting area. 

He didn't bother with a chair, just sinking to the floor, and pulling his knees up to his chin. The tears came then, spilling down his cheeks like a waterfall. He buried his face in his legs, wishing that this was all just a nightmare that he would wake up from soon. 

This couldn't be happening. Not now, not to Catie. Catie didn't deserve this--Catie, who had never done anything intentionally malicious to anyone in her life, who was beautiful and smart and fiery and spirited and kind and loving--she didn't deserve this. Why did this have to happen now? Why Catie? Why?

The questions swirled within his mind like a maelstrom, and Jamie banged his head against the cold cement that made of up the walls of the hospital. The irony of the situation was not lost on him--hadn't he sat right here, a little over two months prior, hating himself for the part he played in Kenny's accident? 

However, this time, it was a thousand fold worse. This time, it was someone that he held closer to his heart then anyone, someone that knew him better then he knew himself, someone that understood--some that he loved. His "wife", his best friend--his Catie. 

"Oh God, Catie..." He whispered to thin air, not caring if anyone around him thought he was insane. "I'm so sorry...I'm so stupid...I should have..." His sobs cut off his whispered words, his body trembling so hard he thought he be torn in half. 

A small, warm body was suddenly pushed up against his right side, and on his left, a long arm was wrapped around his shoulder and pulled his face into a comforting shoulder. A familiar perfume invaded his nose, Jamie leaned against his mother, sobbing heartbrokenly. 

@-}--}---

"So, how did you know that I was here?" Jamie asked his mother, about an hour later after he had calmed down. He was now sitting in one of the chairs that were scattered around the waiting room, Sami curled in his lap, holding on tightly to the lapels of his jacket. His chin rested on the top of her head, the scent of her baby shampoo filling his nose. 

"James Romeo Waite, I am your mother. I have known where you are every second of your life since you were conceived." Genevieve told him, her dark eyes twinkling. Crimson, sitting beside her brother, her head resting lightly on his shoulder, sat up straight and peered around her mother, her dark eyes interested. 

"Really?"

"No, not really." Her mother shook her head, rolling her own dark eyes at the little girl, and smiled. Jazz, sitting on the other side of her mother with Molly in her lap, laughed at her younger sister, but then turned her attention back to the little red haired girl who was sniffling into her doll baby quietly. 

Jamie blinked when he noticed the tears on Molly's face, and then turned his gaze to Jazz. Her eyes and nose were both red, and every so often she would blink rapidly like she was trying to keep from crying. Crimson, next to him, was currently trying to muffle sobs, and even his mother would occasionally wipe at her face with a Kleenex. He looked down at Sami, and saw that she was crying as well, her tears leaving two wet places on his shirt. 

Jamie wanted to smack himself at that moment--he's been so wrapped up in his own feelings, that he hadn't noticed how torn up his family was over what had happened to Catie. He hugged Sami tighter, laying his cheek against her hair and rocking her back and forth, rubbing her back. 

But before he could do anything else, Crimson smacked him upside the head, making him turn to face her with annoyed eyes. 

"What?" 

"Don't you do it." Crimson ordered, her eyes spitting dark fire like his did when he was angry. 

"Do what?" Jamie groaned, reaching up to rube the back of his head. Sami peered over his arm at her older sister, her eyes dark and curious. 

"Push away your feelings, so that you can try and take care of us. Yeah, we all love Catie, but not as much as you do, and your the one that found her. This is killing you a lot more then anyone else, and if you try to force down and hide it, like you did with Dad, it'll do the same thing again---eat you alive, just like a cancer. Your just getting over that NOW, and it's been five years. If you do it to yourself again, there's no telling how long it could last." Crimson finished her tirade standing in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest, and her lower lip trembling and her eyes luminous with tears. 

Jamie opened his mouth to say something, when Lonnie suddenly came into view, holding a clipboard and smiling slightly. He jumped up from his seat, shifting Sami around automatically, and stepped around his still slightly fuming sister to move toward the woman. 

"Is she..." Jamie trailed off, clutching Sami like she would her teddy bear.

"She's in ICU right now, but her doctor says that it's just a precaution." Lonnie started out, smiling at the relief that flooded Jamie's face. 

"Can I see her?" He begged, setting Sami on her feet. 

Lonnie bit her bottom lip, but she couldn't say no to those eyes, and nodded. "Yes, but only for a little bit. She's still weak. So try not to excite her!" 

Jamie nodded, and started down the hallway. Lonnie shook her head, a smile playing on her lips. "She's in room 143!" The woman called the retreating back of Jamie Waite. She turned around again, a smile pulling at her lips, and came face to face with the second pair of unforgettable eyes she had encountered tonight. She smiled at the owner, and Genevieve Waite smiled back. 

"He's crazy about that little girl, isn't he?" Lonnie asked Jamie's mother, smiling. 

"Oh yes. It is nice to see you again, Lonnie." Genevieve greeted the woman with a small smile. 

"You too, Genevieve." Lonnie smiled, her teeth white in her face. The red haired woman's face suddenly turned serious, and she searched Lonnie with her dark eyes. 

"Tell me Lonnie, how would a person go about getting guardianship of an abused child?" 

@-}--}---

Jamie stood outside of Catie's room, his heart banging against his ribcage so hard he was afraid he was going to break one of them. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself, and pushed the door open, stepping into the dimly lit room. 

Catie was propped up on some pillows, her eyes closed, and her face covered with bruises. He could see the top of her bandages peeking out from under her paper thin hospital gown, her black hair curling slightly over the blue cloth. Her chest rose and steadily, and an IV was attached to her arm. Her skin was milk white, even though her lip was split. 

"Oh Catie..." Jamie whispered, moving to sit down next to his best friend, reaching out to take her small hand in both of his. He squeezed it gently, then lifted it to his lips, kissing it lightly. "Oh Catie...I'm not going to let this happen to you again. I swear...I'm gonna protect you...if it's the last thing I do, I swear this is never going to happen to you again." 

To his surprise, Catie's limp fingers squeezed his fingers as soon as he finished his vow, and he looked up into her face, surprised to see her wide hazel eyes looking at him. A soft, half smile played on her lips. 

"I know you will." She could barely force the words out past her throat, and Jamie almost winced at the sound of her voice. "I know you will." 

"Catie...are you okay?" Jamie whispered, lifting her hand to his lips again, pressing a kiss to the tip of her fingers. "You need to sleep." 

"I'm okay. Really, I'm not that sleepy." Catie was lying, and they both knew it. A heavy silence hung around them for an instant, before she broken the silence, her hazel eyes getting heavy. "Jamie?"

"Yeah?" Jamie asked, looking up into her face and noticing that she was about to fall back asleep. 

"Will you sing to me?" 

"What?" Jamie asked, surprised. 

"Will you sing to me?" Catie repeated, opening her eyes and looking at him with slightly pleading eyes. 

"Umm...sure....why?" Jamie asked. As far as he knew, Catie had never heard him sing before. 

"I heard you....the other night. You were putting Sami to bed, and you sang to her...it was so...beautiful." Catie whispered, her voice still rough. Jamie kissed her fingers again, letting a small smile touch his lips. 

"Okay." Jamie thought for a second, before tightening his grip on her hand slightly. Catie smiled softly, and settled back against the pillow, her eyes never leaving Jamie's face. Very softly, he began to sing. 

__

Cause I am hanging on every word you're saying   
Even if you don't wanna speak tonight   
That's alright, alright with me   
Cause I want nothing more than to sit outside heaven's door   
And listen to you breathing   
Its where I wanna be, yeah   
Where I wanna be   


Catie's eyes slipped shut at the final word, a small smile on her lips. Jamie let a matching smile touch his lip, just as his eyes fell on a clock resting beside Catie's bed. The glowing red digits declared it to be twelve oh one. 

His eyes darted back to Catie, and he slowly leaned forward. Slowly, so as not to wake her up, he pressed a soft, gentle kiss to her lips, holding for just a few seconds. When he pulled back, Catie sighed softly, turning her head toward him in her sleep. Jamie reached up to brush a lock of hair out of her eyes, and sighed as well. 

"Happy new year, Catie." 


	10. A Mother's Prayer

Disclaimer: Hey, the Disney character's aren't mine, but the rest of them are! Sheesh...how long have I been promising you guys this story? I have no idea, but it's been a WHILE! I'm sorry!! Really, I am! Very truly sorry! Anyway, I finally got it done, and I hope that it's worth the wait. Or the Waite, whichever works. Hehehe! Anyway, this story has been divided into two, because I found out that what I wanted to do with this is a lot more complicated then I originally thought! Heh! So, be on the look out for "Coming Home", the next in this sequence! 

A Mother's Prayer

The first morning of the new millennium dawned bright, cold and clear. The sun rose with a slow, sleepy kind of unhurried grace, lifting above the horizon like a tired child lifts her head after her nap. The first streaks of red and gold broke through the dark night sky like an angel's song, casting out the shadows that came with the darkness, giving rise to new hope. By the time the golden ball of light was fully visible, all the blackness of night was gone, banished by the rising sun in the age old dance that had taken place every morning since the first morning. 

Genevieve Waite stared out at the sun with the tired eyes of some one whose demons had kept her awake all through the long night. Long red hair hung in her dark brown eyes, loose around her shoulders and flowing nearly to the middle of her back. The matriarch of the Waite family sat with her legs folded up under her in the threadbare, grape juice stained arm chair in her family's home, a cup of steaming blackberry tea, her tenth, in her hand. 

Sighing, the petite woman covered her shadowed eyes with her hand, trying to block out the image of her son's pain filled eyes, and the wisp of a girl that lay so still in a hospital bed she did not belong in. For the millionth time that night, Genevieve cursed her own stupidity, not getting Caitie to safety when the girl's plight became apparent. 

She, who came from the EXACT same type of home, had allowed it to happen to another little girl. Shaking her head again, she cursed herself once more, dropping her hand from her eyes to stare hard at the brilliant light the filled the room. 

"How could I Sam?" Genevieve asked mid-air, a habit she had picked up nearly four years ago. Whenever she was stressed or troubled, she always found it comforting to speak to the spectra of her beloved, though deceased, husband. Her children had told her time and time again that she was insane, why on earth would she talk to Dad when he wasn't ALIVE anymore? It looked like she was talking to herself! It had never bothered Genevieve overly much--she just went right on, talking to her beloved Sam, knowing that, somewhere, someway, he could hear her--and comfort her. 

"How could I Sam? How could I let that little girl suffer the way she did, only getting my act in gear when it was hit home, very hard I might add, that Caitie could _die_ in her current situation?" The red head stopped, setting her coffee cup down on the scuffed table in front of the couch, and moving toward the mantle, where a multitude of photos rested above the fire place. 

Pushing herself up on her toes, the woman grasped a gold and silver frame, lowering herself back to the ground with the picture in her hands. Smiling out at the camera was a captured image of herself when she had been much younger, and her beloved Sam. The thick black hair, hair he had passed down to his oldest son and daughter, hung down in his emerald green eyes, eyes that laughed and smiled, yet burned with something else that not many other people could understand. His quirky smile lit up his face, making him appear even more beautiful then he already did. He towered above the image of her, his arm slung around her shoulders, pressing her tightly to his side. 

A sad smile pulled at her lips as she stared at the picture, before pulling it to her chest and hugging it against her body. Sighing again, she closed her eyes, willing the tears that had threatened there all night to disperse. 

"Oh, Sam, it's never going to change is it? There's always going to be some little girl with a monster for a father, some little girl that's going to be hurt by that monster, some little girl that's going to have to run away to save herself. I wish...." The tears, ignoring her order to leave, began to trickle down her cheeks in a flood, rolling down her high cheekbones, and dribbling down her chin to cling there for the briefest instant, before falling to the floor. "I wish that it just hadn't been Caitie. Hadn't been the little girl that captured our son's heart--because I couldn't bare for him to have to go through the same pain that you went through, loving me." 

Genevieve sniffed, and lifted on hand to her face to bat feebly at the tears that now rained down her face. Sniffing again, she pulled the picture halfway away from her heart to stare at her beloved's face. The smile that had pierced her heart the first time she had ever seen it broke her now, sobs threatening to tear her tiny frame apart. 

"Oh, Sam, it's not fair!" She wept, sinking to the floor, her legs once more folded beneath her. "Caitie didn't deserve this, she's a good, sweet girl! Why is it always the ones that deserve it the least that are always the one to get hurt the most?! Oh, and Jamie...Jamie loves her so, and it kills him to know that he couldn't help her. It kills him to know that she almost died, and nothing he could have done could have stopped it. He LOVES her, Sam, loves her like I love you. And now he must face all the hurt that comes with loving a woman that is 'damaged', a woman that will cringe in fear from his touch sometimes. Oh my son, are you strong enough to love her the way you both deserve?" 

Genevieve allowed herself to completely break down, tears streaming down her face, and her heart breaking in her chest. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. How could this happen, how could she LET this happen? 

Finally, finally, the woman was able to gain control of herself, brushing away the tears from her face and taking a deep, calming breath. Brushing the last of her tears away, Genevieve allowed her eyes to fall on the old picture, now resting in it's silver an gold frame beside her, a few droplets of water marring the glass covering. 

Brushing the water off the picture, the woman rose to her feet, taking the frame with her. She rested it back on it's spot on the mantle, her eyes lingering on her husband's face for a long moment. 

"Rien jamais changements." She whispered sadly, brushing her hair out of her face. "Nothing ever changes, does it, beloved?" 

@-}--}---

The first light of day peeped through room 143's closed hospital window, illuminating a pair of sleeping teenagers. 

Caitie Roth lay on her hospital bed, her head turned away from the window, as though she had fallen asleep looking at the young man that was currently sprawled in the uncomfortable plastic visitor chair that rested beside her bed. Jamie Waite's head was tilted back, his long lashes nearly brushing his cheek as he slept the sleep of those who have suffered far to much in far to short a period of time and nothing in heaven or earth could wake them.

However, the glinting sunlight refused to be intimidated, finally succeeding in it's apparent goal of waking both Caitie and Jamie up. The annoying sunshine woke Caitie up first, her wide hazel eyes fluttering open as she blinked wearily, her entire body hurting. She felt like she had been run over by a truck. 

Lifting her hand to her face, she brushed a lock of hair back from her eyes, and let her gaze wander to the slumbering form of Jamie Waite. In sleep, his face looked much younger then it normally did, his long lashes sweeping his cheeks. His lips were pulled down into a slight frown, as though his dreams weren't as peaceful as they should be, and his body was tight, as though he was poised for a fight in his dreamland. 

The sunlight danced across his face again, and illuminated old tracks of tears that stained his face. Caitie's heart caught in her throat, and she bit her lip, peeling her eyes away from his face, and turning her head. 

She immediately regretted it, a sharp pain biting through her body and pulling an involuntary cry of pain from her lips. The brunette collapsed back against her pillow, shutting her eyes in agony for a second.

However, her small cry of pain was what it took to break through Jamie's deep, if less then peaceful, sleep, and the young man's eyes flew open, the deep depths startled and worried, a complete contrast to the calmness of slumber that covered him just a few seconds ago. 

"Caitie?" He croaked, leaning forward as he did so, reaching out a long fingered hand to her. Caitie, still surprised by the pain that had shot through her body, couldn't answer for a few moments. 

"What are you doing here?" She asked, and then winced at how scratchy and hoarse her voice was. 

"Must have fallen asleep. Are you okay? Does anything hurt? Do you want me to get the nurse?" Jamie asked, brushing off her question. 

"I'm...okay." Caitie winced when another shot of pain racked her body, and she could see the disbelief on her friend's face. 

"I'm going to get the nurse." Jamie told her decisively, rising to his feet and making his way toward the door. 

"No...wait!" Caitie cried, the prospect of being alone suddenly terrifying to her. The dark haired youth stopped in his tracks, turning back to her and returning to her side. 

"What? What is it?" Jamie asked, a line of worry creasing his eyebrows. 

"Don't go." Caitie hated herself for begging. He moved back to her, and sat back down in his chair, his eyes dark with worry. Without even thinking about it, the girl reached out for Jamie's hand, tangling her fingers with his. "I don't...I don't want to be alone." 

Jamie swallowed hard, and squeezed her hand slightly, clearing his throat before speaking. "I'll never leave you, Caitie."

@-}--}---

Jamie stood in front of the phone, trying to talking himself into picking it up. Just pick it up and call Val, he mentally coached himself. You know that Caitie needs her right now--and she has every right to know! 

But that didn't make making this call any easier. How exactly was he suppose to go about telling Val Linar that her best friend was in the hospital, and had been put there by her own father? 

Jamie forced back the bile that rose in the back of his throat at the thought, closing his eyes briefly for a second, trying to force the image of Caitie laying broken and bleeding at the bottom of the staircase from his mind. How could anyone want to hurt her that way? Didn't they see what wonderful, beautiful, smart...

He cut his thoughts off at that point, turning his attention back to the phone. He needed to call Val and tell her what had happened. Caitie had asked him too--she needed her best friend right then--she needed to be surrounded by people that loved her. 

The young man sighed, and picked up the receiver of the pay phone, his other hand fishing a quarter and a dime out of his pocket. Putting the money in the slot, he dialed the number that Caitie had given him before she had fallen asleep. The ringing of the telephone on the other end filled his ear. One ring...two rings...three rings. Maybe she wasn't home?

Before the phone could ring a fourth time, the line was picked up, and a sleepy female voice filled his ears. 

"Hello?" She croaked out. 

"Hello? Is Val there?" Jamie asked, shifting nervously. Just how was he going to word this? 

"This is she. Who is this?" Val sounded a little bit more awake now, and slightly confused as to who would be calling her at seven o'clock in the morning on New Year's Day.

"Val, this is Jamie." He answered, swallowing hard, trying to work out what he was going to say to her in his mind. 

"Hi Jamie....umm....is there something that I can do for you?" Val sounded confused, and Jamie couldn't blame her. He had never called her this early before in the morning--in fact, he didn't think that he had ever called her period. 

"Val..." Jamie trailed off, trying to come up with a way to phrase this as delicately as possible, so as not to shock and upset Val anymore then need be. "Caitie got thrown down a flight of stairs and is in the hospital." Well, that didn't quite come out the way he had planned it.

"WHAT!?!?! OH MY GOD, IS SHE OKAY!? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN!? I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" 

Jamie had, wisely, pulled the phone away from his ear right after the word "what" and still managed to hear what the frantic young woman had screamed perfectly. "Um, okay..." He called into the mouth piece, but was rewarded with only the dial tone. Evidently, Val was already on her way. 

The young man hung up the phone, and headed back toward Caitie's room, hoping that she hadn't woken up in the five minutes it had taken to call Val. He didn't want her to wake alone and afraid--ever again. 

So intent was he on getting back to Caitie, that he missed the gaze of Lonnie Truman on his back. Shaking her head, the woman went back to her typing, a small frown pulling at her lips. 

That poor little girl, Lonnie thought to herself, thinking about her own daughter Destiny, who was actually about the same age as Caitie and Jamie. The woman shuddered, the idea of her beloved little girl being in the same condition as this little girl horrifying her. But at least Caitie had some one that loved her as much as that young man, Lonnie consoled herself. The woman looked back over her shoulder at the rapidly disappearing image of Jamie Waite, and smiled to herself. We should all be so lucky. 

@-}--}---

Jazz Waite stepped through the glass sliding doors of the hospital, looking left to right with slightly terrified interest. Hospitals had always unnerved Jazz--all the sickness and death and despair of human kind, all rolled up into one nice little package and scented with fake oranges and anti-bacterial soap. 

Chewing on her bottom lip, the girl crossed her arms over her chest and walked toward the lobby, intent on going to go see Caitie. 

Jazz hadn't quiet known what to make of Caitie Roth the first time she had met her. Under normal circumstances, the slender girl realized, Caitie would have unnerved her--to say the least. Jazz was, by nature, rather quiet and easily startled, and overly brash and mouthy people tended to spook her. 

However, the conditions surrounding her first encounter with her older brother's best friend had been far from normal, to put it mildly. The scared, battered girl Jamie had brought home wasn't anything like the Caitie the Waite girls had gotten to know over the past few months--which was probably what had allowed Jazz to be at ease around the other girl. The older girl's plight had appealed to Jamie's younger sister's sensitive heart and need to love and protect everyone that hurt. 

Jamie was the oldest of the family; he was the one that protected the younger ones from physical harm and pain. He was the one the little girls went to when they were scared. But Jazz was the tender heart of the family--it was her that everyone, including Jamie, went to when they were hurt and needed tender love and care.

Jazz walked softly into the lobby, her large brown eyes scanning the area for a second, just out of habit. The girl's eyes fell on the nurse's station where a tall, slender blonde girl was leaning, tears streaming down her cheeks. Lonnie was saying something to her, her expression compassionate. The girl nodded dejectedly, her shoulders beginning to shake. The nurse suddenly caught sight of Jazz, and tapped the blonde's hand, pointing to Jazz. 

Confused, the brunette looked over her shoulder, wondering if there was someone behind her that Lonnie was gesturing to. No...so that meant that Lonnie was pointing at _her_. Why in the world was Lonnie pointing at her? 

The blonde nodded her thanks, and walked toward Jazz, her face blotchy and wet from crying. The girl came to rest in front of the brunette, her fingers clasped in front of her. S

Sniffing, the girl asked "Are you Jamie Waite's little sister?" 

Blinking, Jazz nodded slowly, wondering how this girl knew her brother. The way she stood and held herself, not to mention her clothing, put the younger girl in mind of a cheerleader--a group of people that Jamie either a) went out of his way to annoy or b) went out of his way to avoid. 

"Do you know where Caitie Roth's room is?" The girl continued her questions, and again Jazz was startled. Okay, not only did this girl know her brother, but she came to visit Caitie? Who WAS this person? 

"Um...yeah. Who...who ARE you?" Jazz surprised herself by asking. The blonde blinked, and rubbed at her face, her lips trembling. 

"I'm Val Linar--Caitie's my best friend." The girl explained, sniffing again. Jazz nodded, still confused. 

"Umm...oh." Jazz mouthed, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. I thought JAMIE was Caitie's best friend...

"What...what happened to her? All Jamie said was something about stairs, and that she was in the hospital..." Val trailed off again, more tears making their way down her face. 

Jazz bit down on her lower lip until she tasted blood. What was she suppose to do know? She felt like she was being pulled in half--on one hand, Val really needed someone to talk to, but on the other...

"Did Jamie tell you anything?" Val questioned, rubbing at her face again. "How did this happen?" 

Jazz shifted, trying to decide how much she should tell the distraught girl. Obviously, Val had know idea about the kind of home that Caitie came from. Which really wasn't all that strange, the girl reminded herself, remembering everything that her mother had told her about these kinds of situations. 

"Umm...maybe you should sit down?" Jazz suggested softly, gesturing toward the chairs. Val looked at her oddly, but did as the little girl suggested, settling herself into the chair. Something was telling the blonde EMT that whatever this girl had to say was important. 

The oldest Waite girl sat down beside Val, and folded her hands in front of her. Okay, now what was she suppose to say? This wasn't just something that she could blurt out. But what could she say? 

"What happened to Caitie?" Val asked, giving Jazz the perfect opening. The girl took a deep breath, and started. 

"She was...umm...well...thrown down the stairs." Jazz blurted out, and then mentally kicked herself. That's exactly what she said she wasn't going to do! 

"Who...who...who did that?" The blonde girl squeaked out, her eyes filling with tears once again. 

Jazz chewed on her bottom lip again, before taking a deep breath and pushing on. "Her...her father. Her parents...her parents aren't very nice to her." 

Val's face slowly drained of color, and she pressed her hand against her chest for a moment, her lips quivering. Jazz shifted nervously again, wishing that the girl would say something--anything. 

"Caitie's...Caitie's parents...no. I mean...that's not possible...I would have...I would have noticed something...I would have SEEN something. She's been my best friend forever...I would have SEEN something..." Val trailed off, putting her hands up to her face. 

"It's...it's not always something people notice." Jazz tried to reassure the girl. Val looked over at the younger girl for a moment, her eyes red from crying. 

"Your brother knew. You knew." 

Jazz fidgeted again, before reaching out and putting a hand on the older girl's arm. "We knew because Jamie told us, that's all." 

"But Jamie still knew." Val was still beating herself up over this. 

"Jamie only knew because he saw it happen." Jazz again tried to reassure the other girl. Val just shook her head, burying her face in her hands again. 

"I just can't believe this." Val whispered again, wiping at the tears on her face. 

Jazz was silent for a few minutes, before taking a deep breath. "Maybe you...maybe you should talk to Caitie?" 

"I...I know I should...but I...I don't even know what I'd say to her..." The blonde whispered, pushing a lock of her blonde hair out of her face. 

"I don't either." Jazz whispered, worrying her bottom lip again. "But...she's your best friend. I bet...I bet you can come up with something." 

Val let a shaky smile pull at her lips. "I think you're right." 

@-}--}---

Jamie's hands were so warm, Caitie thought to herself sleepily, her eyes fluttering open to look at the young man who was holding her small hand in both of his larger ones. His thumb rubbed small circles on the back of her hand, hard enough to give reassurance, but soft enough not to hurt her. 

When he noticed that she was awake, he smiled at her, his dark eyes still nearly black with worry. Reaching out carefully, he brushed a lock of her hair back--and she couldn't help but flinch. Jamie dropped his hand immediately, his gaze suddenly apologetic. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." Jamie was cut off by a knock on the door. The door creaked open, and Val Linar filled the doorway, her bright blue eyes flooded with tears. 

"Caitie?" She whispered, looking at her best friend in horror and helplessness. Caitie blinked, and shot a glance at Jamie, before turning her attention back to her best friend. 

"Hi Val." 

The simple phrase seemed to completely destroy what very little composure Val had left, and tears began to spill down her cheeks in torrents. Caitie was slightly taken aback by the display, and Jamie looked uncomfortable. 

"I think I'll...umm...give you guys a little privacy." Jamie decided, gently releasing Caitie's hand and standing up, heading toward the door. 

"Okay...thanks." Caitie agreed, as Val took the seat that Jamie had just vacated. The door closed, and the dark haired girl turned her gaze toward Val, shame welling in her chest. Just another way that she wasn't as good as her perfect best friend...

"Oh Caitie...why didn't you...why didn't you tell me?" Val whispered, grabbing her best friend's hand in hers. "And how could I have not have seen the signs? You're my BEST FRIEND...and I didn't...I didn't even realize. I didn't even look...I didn't even THINK...oh Caitie, I'm so sorry." The girl was forced to stop as sobs racked her body. 

Caitie bit her bottom lip, and squeezed the other girl's hand. "Val...Val, I'm...I'm sorry." 

"You're sorry? For what?" The blonde asked, shaking her head in confusion. 

"I don't know...I just...I'm just sorry too, okay? If you get to be sorry for no reason, so do I." She answered, tears of her own welling up in her eyes.

"Caitie...oh God...how long has this been going on?" Val couldn't help but ask, though she really wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. Caitie shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. 

"Always. But it was never this bad before, really. It's gotten so much worse in the past few months--since Halloween, I guess." 

"Why didn't you tell me?" Val asked, her voice shaking. 

"Because...because I couldn't. I just...I just couldn't. I was afraid...and ashamed...and I didn't want you to treat me differently..." Caitie whispered, looking down, unable to meet her best friend's gaze. 

"But...you told Jamie..." Val whispered, then mentally kicked herself--it sounded like she was accusing her! 

"Jamie...Jamie saw it happen, I didn't TELL him." Caitie explained herself. A small, sad smile pulled at her lips. 

"He doesn't treat--" Val started, but Caitie shook her head, cutting her off. 

"He does...you just don't notice it. He's...he's so protective now, and gentle and...never mind." Caitie shook her head again, ending the discussion on Jamie Waite. Now was not the time. "Val...I'm sorry..." 

"Don't apologize. You haven't done anything wrong--nothing at all." Val whispered, and again, Caitie couldn't meet her gaze. 

"Are you sure? I mean...if I was more like...I don't know...you...so pretty and perfect...maybe..." Caitie trailed off, hating herself for thinking like that. Val made a choked sound in her throat, and threw her arms around her best friend, hugging her as tightly as the girl's injuries would allow. 

"Caitie...Caitie don't even think like that! This is not your fault! You're wonderful, just the way you are! It's you're parent's fault, not yours! Not yours at all!" The blonde sobbed again, burying her face in her best friend's dark hair. Caitie hugged back, her tears falling freely. 

When both girls were all cried out, they settled back into their respective places, both girls feeling better for their mutual cry. Val was the first to break the comfortable silence. 

"So...what happens now?" 

"I have no idea." Caitie whispered, a hint of terror coloring her words. "I have no earthly idea." 

@-}--}---

Genevieve straightened her shoulders and dusted a speck of imaginary dust off her coat sleeve. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself, thankful that her Cover Girl hid the dark fatigue circles under her eyes. 

"Time to go to war." The woman whispered, opening the door of the office building and stepping inside. 

The sunlight glinted off the bronze plate as she disappeared into the office. 

****

Maxwell E. Huff, Attorney at Law 


	11. Readjustments

Disclaimer: Guess what! The IaHB characters aren't mine, though almost everyone else in this story is! Sheesh---I think I focused more on the made-up characters in this story, then the actual real characters! Well, whatever. I know that this story has taken me forever and a day to right, and I'm sorry--I've just been major stuck on it! But hey, at least I wrote it, right? *sigh* This is the story with the constantly changing title, for anyone whose interested. At first it was going to be "Gone, But Not Forgotten". Then it was going to be "Coming Home", which it was right up until I finished it. But now it's not either--Coming Home will be next, and _then_ Gone, But Not Forgotten. Anyway, without further ado...

Readjustments

Genevieve Waite nervously brushed a lock of her bright red hair behind her ear, before folding her hands in her lap as she sat in the waiting room/living room of her attorney's office building. Lawyers always made her nervous. Maybe it was just a throw-back from all the lawyer jokes her beloved Sam had been so fond of telling, but for some reason she had never been able to be completely at ease with an attorney, no matter how nice they appeared to be. In fact, that might be what worried her--the nicer the lawyer, the more she mistrusted them.

Max Huff wasn't exactly nice. He wasn't cruel and ruthless, like the most lawyers had a reputation for being, but describing him as nice was too generous. He was too blunt, too direct to be truly nice. 

However, he was a good lawyer. Actually, the best lawyer in town--and he didn't charge extravagant amounts of money either. 

"Max, you have a client!" A deep female voice called from the depths of the tiny office building. 

And that was probably the reason, shouting from the background. Even though Max had represented Jamie when he was convicted of shoplifting (and was probably the only reason Jamie hadn't gone to juvenile), Genevieve might not have come back to him if it wasn't for his secretary, Peggy. 

The forty something woman was one of the friendliest people she had ever met in her life, with the warm, maternal personality that made it difficult for people to dislike her or mistrust her. But for all her sweetness, Peggy was amazingly strong, having raised her two teenager daughters by herself for the past six years. 

"Oh, hi Genevieve. How are you?" Peggy asked, smiling. That was another thing that Genevieve like about the woman--she never forgot a face, or a name to go with that face. "Has Jamie...?" 

"No, he's fine." The younger woman smiled, her dark eyes twinkling. "He's managing to keep himself out of trouble, thankfully." 

"That's good." Peggy laughed, her blue eyes suddenly mischievous. "Is he still single? My oldest girl, Stephanie, still thinks he's the cutest guy she's ever seen." 

Genevieve laughed out loud. "Isn't she a little old for him? Won't she be 19 in a few months?" 

"I pointed that out too. Her response was a rather indignant squeak and a shriek that 'love knows no age'!" The two women laughed together, Peggy rolling her eyes. "No wonder she's so fascinated with acting--she's such a drama queen." 

"Peg, if the gossip session's over..." A bass male voice asked, as Max Huff stepped out of the shadows. Genevieve swallowed hard, and tired to hold onto her stomach, while Peggy just rolled her eyes. 

"Shut up, Max." 

Max made a face at the woman before gesturing toward his office. "So, what seems to be the problem, Mrs. Waite?" 

"I need to know how to get custody of a child, Mr. Huff." 

@-}--}---

"What do you think they're talking about?" Jamie asked, shifting in the hard hospital lobby chair he was currently slouching in, his little sister Jazz seated next to him, her shoulder's held perfectly straight and her hands folded in her lap.

"Probably about everything that's been happening." Jazz guessed, looking over at her brother, her dark brown eyes scanning his taunt frame and the way he kept his eyes trained on the door. 

"I guess." Jamie mumbled. "I just wish they'd hurry up." He continued, even softer. 

"Jamie..." Jazz began, trying to come up with the right way to phrase the questions that were swirling around in her head. How does one ask their brother if said brother is in love with his best friend? 

Thankfully, Jazz was rescued from having to find out by the entrance of their three younger sisters: Crimson, Molly and Sami. Sami, the youngest at four, was still clad in her pajamas; the pink ones, with the feet. Crimson, who had just turned twelve, was carrying her, and the little girl looked like she was about to fall asleep again at any moment. Molly trailed along behind Crimson, two of her fingers looped through one of her older sister's belt loops. 

"What are you three doing here?" Jamie demanded, rising from his seat. "And where's Mere?" 

"She said something about having something to do, and that she'd be home later. Something to do with the restaurant, I think.*" Crimson explained, knitting her eyebrows together. "Or maybe something else. I was about half asleep when she told me where she was going." 

"Why am I not surprised?" Jamie asked, reaching down to take Sami out of the younger girl's arms. The baby of the family adjusted to her new position without even waking up. 

"Bite me." Crimson snapped back, putting her hands on her hips and making a face at her older brother. 

"I'm hungry." Molly suddenly spoke up, effectively stopping the battle of insults that was rapidly brewing between Crimson and Jamie. 

"So, what else is new?" Crimson commented, but with no actual venom. 

"Come on, Molly, I'll take you to get something to eat." Jazz promised, reaching out a hand to the little girl. The younger girl took it and the duo walked off, in search of the vending machines. 

Left with nothing else to do, Jamie sat back down in his chair, this time careful to keep from waking Sami, who was still cradled in his lap. Crimson took the seat that Jazz had vacated, stretching her legs out in front of her, and lifting her arms above her head, her expression slightly bored. 

For a minute, the Waite siblings sat in silence. But Crimson, unlike her older sister, wasn't quiet by natured--long silences tended to annoy her. 

"How is she?" The girl asked, looking over at her brother. His shoulders stiffened noticeably, and his eyes darkened. 

"She's okay. Talking to Val right now." Jamie told Crimson, his eyes locking on the door again, just like he had been doing before his younger sisters had gotten there. 

Crimson surveyed her brother for a long second, cocking her head to the left, so that a shower of her waist length red hair fell over her eyes. Growling in annoyance, she pushed it out of her face, before turning her attention back to her brother. He was still staring at the door like his life depended on it. 

"You really love her, don't you?" Crimson asked point blank, unknowingly echoing her older sister's thoughts from before. 

"What?!" Jamie yelped, giving Crimson his sudden and full attention. 

"You heard me. You. Really. Love. Caitie. Don't you?" Crimson asked, flashing him an acid sweet smile. 

"She's my best friend--of course I care about her!" Jamie danced around the question as best he could, trying to keep his cheeks from flaming. 

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." His younger sister pointed out, pulling her lips into a disbelieving line. 

"No, I have no idea what you mean." Jamie found that he couldn't look at his sister. 

"Riiiiiight..." Crimson nodded. 

Before Jamie could continue to defend himself, the door swung open, and a red-eyed Val Linear walked through the door. He jerked his attention away from his sister, and stood up, shifting the still sleeping Sami around in his arms as he did so. 

Before he could say anything, Val let a small, sad smile touch her lips. "She's asleep." 

"Oh." Was the only thing he could think to say. 

For a long moment, neither one of them could think of anything to say. But then Val's face crumpled, a tears coursed down her cheeks. 

"Oh, God Jamie, she looks so bad. How could I not have known? I'm so...STUPID..." Val berated herself, pushing her fingers through her hair. 

"Val..." Jamie began, but Crimson cut him off, materializing by his right elbow. 

"Why?" She asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"Why what? And who are you?" Val asked, looking at the girl in confusion. 

"His sister." She tilted her head at Jamie. " Why are you stupid?" Crimson asked, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at the girl like one would look at an interesting bug. 

"Because...I...my best friend.." Val trailed off again, tears filling her eyes once again. 

"Oooh...so you're stupid because you couldn't read her mind. Of course." Crimson nodded, her expression understanding. "I understand completely." 

"There are SIGNS--I should have SEEN..." Val informed the redhead, swallowing so hard you could see it. 

"Signs can be hidden, and even the people that SORTA knew about it--like him--" Jamie's little sister jerked her thumb in her brother's direction, "Didn't even realize how bad it was. How could YOU, who, I'm sure, have never known anyone else that was abused, have seen it?" 

"I...I..." Val couldn't seem to think of anything to contradict the girl's statement. 

"Yeah, you, you. Look, I'm sure you care a lot about Caitie--you must, or you wouldn't be here at eight o'clock in the morning. So, stop beating yourself up over this, and be her friend--be there for her, and, most importantly, stop crying about everything. Caitie's going to be fine." Crimson ordered, hands on her hips. 

Val stared at the girl for a long moment, her lips moving, but no sound coming out. Then she slowly nodded, reaching up to brush the tears off her face. 

"You're right. You're right." Val agreed, nodding her head to emphasis her point. She started down the hallway, but then stopped, and turned around. "Thank you." She then continued her walk down the hallway.

"Yeah, whatever." Crimson shrugged, and grinned at her brother's dumfound expression. "What?" 

"You know, you're obnoxious." Jamie informed her, a small grin pulling at his lips. 

"I learned at the master's knee." She smirked up at him, her eyes glinting. 

@-}--}---

"Thank you for seeing me today--I hate to drag you away from your family, but this is very important..." Genevieve trailed off, eyeing the man in front of her wearily. Max waved it off with a careless flick of his hand. 

"You said that already--besides, the girls won't be up until noon, and Peg's oldest is watching them. Even if they do wake up, they love Stephanie, so it's no big deal. Now, what, exactly, is your problem?" The slightly balding man asked, lifting an eyebrow and shuffling some of his papers. 

"I want to get custody of a child--well, a teenager actually." Genevieve amended. 

"What's the child's full name?" Max asked, selecting one of the papers he had been playing with. 

"Caitlin Marie Roth." 

"Birthday?"

"April 24, 1983." 

"Social Security number?" 

"It's..." Genevieve reached into her purse, and tugged out the little paper she had written Caitie's social security number on. "589186727" 

"Alright--now, to the real questions. On what grounds do you want to sue for custody?" Max asked, never taking his eyes off the paper he was writing on. 

"Parental abuse and neglect." Genevieve stated promptly, glad that Lonnie had told her the proper phrasing of the charge. 

Max whistled, and tapped his fingers on the desktop. "That's a pretty serious charge--and a hard one to make stick. Has DHS investigated yet?" 

"No, and I'd rather they not." Genevieve replied. 

"If the charge is abuse, then they'll have to." Max told her, and Genevieve cursed fluently in French. 

"Those idiots at DHS won't help her at all--their slower then Christmas, and normally wrong to boot." Genevieve snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"You've had run-ins with them?" Max asked, his tone curious. 

"When I was a teenager." Genevieve's tone warned him to drop it. "Besides, if DHS gets involved, they'll either leave her that house, or ship her off to foster care, neither which is a good idea for her." 

"True." Max looked impressed with her knowledge of the workings of the Department of Human Services. "So, how are you related to the girl?" 

"I'm not." Genevieve admitted, and sucked in a breath when she saw Max's expression become one of slight worry. "What?" 

"How long have you know her?" He asked, and Genevieve shrugged. 

"About two months." Max's expression got even grimmer. "You don't think I have a shot of getting her, do you?" Genevieve realized, looking at the man her expression as bleak as his. 

"No, I don't. I'd say your chances of getting her, if her parents fight for her, is slim to walking out the door." The lawyer admitted.

The woman shut her eyes, and massaged her temples, the bitter taste of bile filling her mouth. God, what was she going to do? She had to get Caitie out of that house, _now_. She didn't have time for DHS to investigate and make a decision. She'd wasted enough time already. 

She winced when she thought about all the time she had wasted, all those months she could have spent trying to get Caitie out of her house. But she had just sat back, and let that child be beat--what kind of person was she, to let someone else suffer the way she had? 

A swell of self-loathing threatened to drown her, but she pushed it back hastily. _First, you have to help Caitie_, she thought to herself. _Then you can beat your self up._

Suddenly, something Max had said popped into her brain, and her eyes flew open. Eyeing Max for a minute, she leaned back in her chair. 

"What do you mean, _if_ they decide to fight for her?" 

@-}--}---

Caitie looked so small, lying there asleep on the bed, Jamie thought, staring at the young woman from the doorway of her room. So small and so fragile--like a china doll. Who could ever wanna hurt her?

Crimson poked him in the back, and he stepped into the room, still carrying Sami. He carefully laid the little girl down on vacant bed beside Caitie's. That done, he turned back to his best friend. As he did so, he caught sight of his little sister, standing in the doorway, her face paler then normal.

Jamie suddenly remembered that this was the first time that Crimson had seen Caitie since she had been in the hospital. He swallowed hard, and held out an arm to the girl. She obediently walked forward, slipping under his arm and laying her head on his chest. The two looked down at the sleeping girl for a long time, the room silent except for the sound of breathing. 

"She looks so...broken, Jamie." Crimson whispered finally, her voice cracking like thunder in the room. 

"I know. But...she's okay, Crimmie. She'll be okay." Her brother told her, hugging her against his side. 

"How...how do you know? How do you know that her parents won't do this again, won't hurt her worse next time? How do you know that they won't kill her next time?" She asked softly.

"I...I won't let that happen." Jamie swallowed, having to fight the sudden burning at the back of his throat. "I won't let anyone else hurt her, ever again. I don't know how, but I swear to God, nobody else is ever going to hurt her again." 

@-}--}---

The ringing of Jazz's cell phone surprised the fourteen year old. Blinking in confusion, she pulled the phone out of her purse, and flipped it open, holding it to her ear. Hardly anyone ever called her on her cell--it was mostly for emergencies and the like. 

"Hello?" She asked carefully, looking over at Molly who was still happily chewing away on some horribly disgusting meat substitute. 

"Jazz!" Her mother's voice sounded oddly excited about something. 

"Mom?" The girl asked, knitting her eyebrows together. "Where are you? What are you doing?" 

"I'm at Max's!" Genevieve told her, before continuing on. "I have the greatest news!" 

"Max? Max who? What news?" Jazz was really confused now.

"Max--Max Huff, my lawyer!" 

"Your lawyer? Why were you talking to your lawyer?" 

"Are you at the hospital now?"

"Yeah--we all are. I'm in the cafeteria with Molly, and Jamie's got Crimson and Sami. I think their visiting Caitie. Mom, why were you talking to your lawyer?"

"Good! Good! I'll be right there--I wanna talk to all of you about something. I'm on my way now! Be there soon; love you! Bye!" The dial tone sounded in Jazz's ears.

Jazz hung up her phone as well, confusion marring her face. Molly looked up at her from where she was eating, her red eyebrows knitted together.

"Who was that?" She asked, tilting her head to the left. 

"Mom. She's on her way to the hospital--she wants to talk to us all about something." Jazz told her little sister, chewing on the bottom of her lip. "Are you done?" 

"Uh huh." Molly told her sister, nodding her head. 

"Then come on--Mere said she'd be here soon." 

@-}--}---

Caitie stirred, slowly opening her eyes. The first thing she laid eyes on was Jamie and Crimson Waite, standing beside her bed, looking down at her. She let a small smile touch her face, and the siblings smiled back at her. 

Jamie broke away from his little sister, and moved closer to her, reaching out to gently take her hand in his. Caitie's smile grew, and she slowly twined her fingers around his.

"Okay, you two, get a room." Crimson ordered, laughter in her voice. 

Jamie blushed scarlet, and Caitie felt her face get hot as well. 

"Very funny, Crimmie." Jamie muttered, studying his shoes with sudden interest. Caitie was suddenly very interested in her feet as well, not the mention the end of the bed. 

Before the two could wallow in their embarrassment any longer, the door flew open, and Genevieve Waite nearly bounded through the door, her long red hair flying out behind her. Caitie had to muffle a giggle; the woman looked very much like her youngest daughter did whenever the little girl got excited about something. Molly and Jazz were right behind her, both looking slightly baffled and a little winded. 

"Mere?" Jamie asked, tilting his head to the right as she came to a halt at the end of Caitie's bed. "What are you so excited about?" 

"I went to see my lawyer today." Genevieve began, ignoring her only son's question for the time being. 

"Uh oh...what'd you do this time Jamie?" Caitie teased, and Jamie glared at her, but the smile on his face took the bite out of the expression. 

"Nothing, nothing." The older woman assured the girl, the smile slowly disappearing off her face. "I went to do something that I should have done months ago." 

"And that was..." Crimson began, twirling her wrist around in the universal sign for 'continue please'. 

"I went in to see about getting custody of Caitie." Genevieve stated, her eyes dancing across the suddenly shocked expressions on her children and Caitie's faces. 

"Wait...what...like, custody custody? Like, I would be living at you're house, stuff like that?" Caitie asked, the first one to break out of her stupor. 

"Well, it's not like it would be THAT much of a change." Crimson noted. "You're there more then Jamie is!" 

"Yes, that's what that means." Genevieve chose to ignore her second oldest daughter as she studied Caitie's stunned face. 

"And, my parents would like, pay you?" Caitie guessed, wrinkling her eyebrows together. The older redhead shook her head.

"No; it be like you were one of my own children." Genevieve explained. 

"Like--one of your own?" Caitie echoed, her face shocked. "You would... do that? For me? You'd...you'd take me in? Why?"

Genevieve slowly moved around the bed, until she was standing right beside Caitie's head, across the bed from her son. She smiled gently at the younger girl, before reaching out to smooth back some of the girl's dark brown hair. "Because I'm not going to let some one I love, and some one my children love, be hurt, not when I have the power to stop it. I won't allow it." 

As Genevieve spoke, Caitie's eyes had slowly been filling with tears, and then spilling down her face. She dashed at them angrily, trying to calm herself. "I can't let you do that, Genevieve...I mean, no offense, but your house is packed as it is." 

"You can share me and Molly's room." A sleep little voice offered, and Sami suddenly appeared next to her mother, only her eyes and the top of her head visible over the edge of the bed. "We're little, and neat!" 

"Or you could have my room." Jamie offered, putting his hand on top of Sami's head. She turned around and held her arms out expectantly toward her brother, and he scooped her up, settling her on his hip. 

"We'll figure it out later." Genevieve told her, a small smile pulling at her lips. "That is, if you _want_ to live with us." 

"I...I mean..." Caitie trailed off, looking around the room at the faces of the people standing around her. When she turned her gaze to Jamie, their eyes locked, and a swell of...something rose in her chest. Looking down, a small smile pulled at her lips. 

"You don't have to decide now." Genevieve told the girl, smiling softly. "I know it's a tough decision..."

Without warning, Caitie burst into laughter, shaking her head. The Waites looked at her in confusion, their looks nearly perfect mirrors. When the injured girl finally got a hold of herself, she told them what she had suddenly found so incredibly funny. 

"This sounds like something from one of those really bad Lifetime movies!" 

Crimson snorted in amusement and agreement. However, Caitie's merriment over the situation soon faded into a somber kind of happiness. Reaching up to nervously tuck a lock of her dark hair behind her ear, she locked gazes with Genevieve. 

"Seriously, though...I...would like it...love it...if you would...I mean...can you?" The dark haired Goth girl stuttered, looking at the older woman. The matriarch of the Waite family smiled again, and nodded. 

"I can--and I will." 

*_Genevieve's restaurant, appropriately named **Genevieve's **appeared in my story _Spanish Guitar_, if you don't remember seeing it before in this series..._


	12. Coming Home

Disclaimer: Well, since Disney doesn't want them anymore, does that mean their up for grabs? If they were, I want them! I want them! (Especially Jamie…he can live in my dorm room with me! My roommate won't mind!) *gasps in shock* I can't believe it! I actually got Coming Home finished!!! *does happy dance* Go me! Go me! Be on the look out for "Gone, But Not Forgotten", the next story in this arc, and the second to last in the series. Anyway, I don't own the characters you recognize, but I DO own the characters that are mine. (Except for Sam and Cindy…their not exactly mine either.) This one is for Mad Cow and Arcadia, because they are the bestest! *mutters about el jerko* You two are the greatest!!! Anyway, without further ado….

Coming Home

It was almost too easy, Genevieve Waite thought dazedly as she sat in Max Huff's office nearly three days later after getting Caitie Roth's acceptance in the hospital. 

The red haired woman nervously crossed and uncrossed her legs, her hands clenched in her lap so tightly that her fingers were beginning to turn white. The morning sunlight splashed through the windows, bright and cheerful, illuminating the pictures of his daughters that her lawyer kept on his desk. At any other time, the pictures of the cute little girls would have made Genevieve smile, but now she was too preoccupied with her thoughts to spare the pictures a glance. 

Was she doing the right thing, asking Caitie's parents to give her custody of the girl? Would they even do it? If they didn't, would Genevieve fight for her? 

Without even thinking about it, Genevieve knew that the answer to her last question was a resounding "yes". She couldn't abandon that little girl to the, obviously, less then tender mercies of her natural parents. Genevieve herself had grown up in a similar situation; she'd sooner die they knowingly let another child live through it. 

Sighing, the woman ran her fingers through her bright red hair, sending a silent pray to whomever might be listening that this would go better then she was expecting it too. The sound of a throat clearing made her jump slightly, before she rose and turned around, coming face to face with Max's secretary Peggy and a couple who she didn't recognize. 

The woman, however, bore a strong resemblance to Caitie, and after a split second, Genevieve deduced that these were obviously the Roths, and they were both more the slightly confused by what they were doing here. Genevieve studied them for a second, her dark brown eyes flickering over them, a bitter taste filling her mouth. These were the people that beat and abused Caitie, and they looked as if they had no idea why they had been called to a lawyer's office. 

"Now, who, exactly are you? Don't tell me that you're the lawyer." Caitie's father, Ben Roth, if Genevieve remembered correctly, sneered, his hand clutching his wife's arm possessively. Genevieve's eyes darted to Jennifer Roth, who had a slightly pained expression on her face, but she quickly schooled it into pleasant expression. 

"No, I'm not the lawyer." Genevieve had to fight to keep herself from snarling at the man. Somehow, she would never truly know how, she managed to keep her voice borderline pleasant. 

"That would be me." Max's deep bass filled the room, and, a second later, the man strode in, tossing a manila fold onto his desk as he sat down behind it, leaning back in his chair. 

"Please have a seat." He offered the Roths, waving at the assorted three chairs that stood around his room. 

Genevieve reclaimed her chair, and the Roths, eyeing the woman suspiciously, sat as well. 

"Would you please tell us what the meaning of this is?" Ben Roth asked, his muddy brown eyes hard and unforgiving. Genevieve couldn't help but note that Caitie had her mother's eyes, eyes that looked a bit more worried then her husband's. "And who is this?" The man stabbed a rather beefy finger at the petite redhead, who wanted desperately to snap some rude comment back. Genevieve just managed to keep her firebrand tongue under control, but it took massive effort. 

"This is Genevieve Waite, and she's here to discuss your daughter…er…Caitlin with you." Max consulted the papers in the fold for a second, before looking to Genevieve. Before the Roths had gotten there, the two of them had decided that it would be Genevieve to inform them of what, exactly, it was that she wanted, and then they would go from there. 

"What about Caitlin? What trouble has that brat gotten into know?" Ben asked, irritably, and, again, Genevieve had to bite her tongue. 

"Caitie's in no trouble." Genevieve fought the urge to tell him that he, on the other hand, might be, if she was given half the chance. "But there is…something that I would like to discuss with you." 

"What?" Jennifer asked, lifting an eyebrow. 

Since there was actually no polite way of saying it, Genevieve decided on the direct route. "I'm planning on suing you for custody of her." 

"WHAT!?" Ben roared, coming to his feet and dropping his wife's arm for the first time since they had been there. 

It went rapidly downhill from there. 

After twenty minutes of hearing Roth rant and rave like some kind of lunatic, watching Jennifer sit with a pinched face, and listening to Max attempting to explain exactly what she was asking for to the unhearing couple, Genevieve had had quite enough. Coming to her feet like a bolt of fire, her bright red hair nearly glowing in the light of the room and her eyes spitting dark fire, the little Canadian woman preceded to yell the much bigger man down in a voice that, when used to summon one of her children, had them rapidly searching through their thoughts in an attempt to remember what exactly it was that they had done. 

"HOW DARE YOU STAND THERE AND ACT LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHY I'M ASKING—NO, DEMANDING—CUSTODY OF CAITIE?!" Were the first words out of her mouth, in a near deafening roar. "You neglect, emotionally batter and down right ABUSE that little girl and I won't stand for it any longer! You're both selfish, cruel and rude, and it's a wonder that Caitie turned out as well as she did with having people like you for role models! If you won't sign the papers, I'll take you to court and drag you both through the mud, even if you do, by some act of God, win. You'll never be able to show your faces socially again!" Genevieve noticed the way Jennifer winced at that comment, and her lips twisted cruelly, disgust for the woman filling her. "That poor little girl has been through hell and back, and I WILL NOT stand by any longer and watch it!" 

Jennifer looked slightly sick, but Ben was too angry to care about what the woman was saying. "Whatever lies that little brat has been filling your empty head with, they aren't true!" 

"She hasn't told me anything—I can see it with my own eyes!" Genevieve screamed back, her eyes glinting dangerously. "She's at my house more then she's at her own home, she spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with us, and would have been there for New Years had she not been HOSPITALIZED!" 

Jennifer flinched back, and Genevieve took that as a sign that the woman hadn't known where her own daughter was for the past several days. The red head couldn't imagine not knowing, or worse, not caring where her children were—she knew were all of them, from Jamie to Sami were almost constantly. Turning her attention away from Ben to his wife, Genevieve narrowed her eyes at the woman, her lips pulling into what could be considered a snarl. 

"Sacre Deiu, don't you care anything about your daughter?! How could you not! She's your DAUGHTER! You're her MOTHER!"

"How would YOU KNOW!?" Now Jennifer was on her feet, screaming. "How the hell would you know what it's like!?" 

"I AM A MOTHER! What, you thought I just found Caitie on the street one day and took her home with me?! MY oldest is her best friend—that's how I met her! Shortly after that LOVELY incident, right after Halloween, right Mrs. Roth!?" Genevieve spat out, her eyes flashing brightly. She saw Jennifer's uncomprehending look, and she wanted to throw up. 

"You can't even remember, can you? What, it's such a common thing now, that you can't even remember?!" 

Jennifer stopped and stared at her for a moment, realization dawning in her eyes. "That…that BOY…that was with Caitie…"   


"My son." Genevieve spat out. 

"He…he…" 

"Yes, he saw. He saw it all. Now, if you don't both want to end up in JAIL, I suggest that you SIGN THE FUCKING PAPERS!" Genevieve slammed the papers down in front of them, her eyes blazing with holy fire. 

They did. 

@-}--}---

"There had to be something illegal about that." Peggy stood outside the door, staring at a much calmer Genevieve, who smiled brightly back. 

"Whatever do you mean?" She asked innocently, tilting her head to the right and giving her Crimson's patented wide-eyed innocent look. 

"What you did in there. SOMETHING about it had to be illegal." Peggy told her, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her head back and forth. 

"Oh, well, I'm sure Max will figure it all by next Tuesday." Genevieve shrugged, flashing a million watt smile. 

"That's when you and the Roths are coming back to finish the paperwork?" Peggy deduced, smiling at her much shorter friend. 

"Yes. I hope things go as well as they did today." Genevieve answered sarcastically, before rolling her eyes. 

"Yeah." Peggy agreed, almost shuddering at the memory of the echoing screams of Genevieve and the Roths. 

@-}--}---

"So, when do I get to get out of here?" Caitie Roth asked for the forth time, leaning back against the pillows of her bed, looking around the hospital room in distaste. 

"Tomorrow, Caitie." Jamie Waite answered for the fourth time, shaking his head. 

"What time?" Caitie demanded, turning her head to look at the clock. 

"Why do you want to know that?" Crimson Waite, from her position of lounging on the vacant bed beside Caitie asked, lifting her eyebrows and looking at Caitie like she was slightly crazy. 

"Because, I want to know EXACTLY how many more minutes until I can get out of this place." The brunette informed her, crossing her arms and looking like she was trying very hard not to pout. 

Jamie couldn't help it; the young man burst into laughter, burying his face in his hands. "You're crazy, Caitie." 

The sound of a throat being cleared got the attention of the trio in the room, and they looked up to find four people milling around in the doorway, looking slightly uncomfortable. Tyler Connell stood protectively close to Val Linear, and Hank Beechum stood next to him, Val's little sister Brooke in front of him.

Jamie grinned, and waved a hand toward the rest of the squad. "Hi guys…you know, you can come in. We're not going to bite." 

"Speak for yourself, Jamie." Crimson ordered, sitting up and swinging her feet over the edge of the bed. Brooke looked at her, a little bit uneasily, with a spark of recognition in her eyes. The red head smirked at her, lifting an eyebrow. "I might get hungry." The words seemed directed solely at Brooke, who looked down at her feet and blushed brightly. 

Val and Tyler exchanged looks, while Hank just struggled not to look amused. It was at this point that Caitie decided that it was time to speak up. 

"Well, look at that. The entire super squad decided to visit me!" But they knew she was teasing, her dark eyes sparkling. 

"Hey, I wouldn't want to visit you by myself. Why d'ya think I always come with him?" Crimson cracked, pointing her finger at her older brother at the end of her sentence. Caitie put her hand up to her face, and snorted, trying to hold the laughter in. 

"How are you Caitie?" Tyler broke, smiling slightly at the banter between the two girls. 

"Pretty good. You should see the other guy." Caitie replied, rather jovially. 

"That's why Caitie's my role model, and not you, Romeo." Crimson gleefully informed her brother, who rolled his eyes, trying to contain his own laughter. 

"I knew there had to be a reason." Jamie mused, after he had gotten control of his laughter. 

"Don't worry, Jamie, you'll always be my role model." Jazz Waite's voice declared, as the petite brunette made her way through the crowd of EMTs at the door, Sami and Molly dutifully following along behind them. When they were free of the crowd, the youngest Waite, Sami, crowed with delight at seeing her big brother and her "favoritest" Caitie, as she had taken to calling the girl. 

"Oh, God. That's just what the world needs—another Jamie." Caitie moaned in response, and Jazz flashed a brilliant smile, her eyes glowing. 

"Yeah, I thought so too." Only some who knew her very well knew that Jazz was joking. 

"You know, I'm beginning to feel unloved." Jamie complained from his seat, and then grunted slightly when Sami flung her self at him and clambered into his lap. 

"I still love you, Jamie!" She reminded him, giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek. 

"See, at least I have one mind that I can mold in my image." Jamie informed the room at large. 

"Dear God, that poor child." Caitie teased, as Sami leaned forward in her brother's arms to give Caitie the same smacking kiss she had given her brother. 

"Umm…err…are we interrupting?" Val asked uneasily, watching the byplay between the Waite kids and Caitie in fascination. Never had she seen her best friend so at ease around a group of people this way. 

"No, not really, we're just goofing off." Jazz smiled at Val, and the blonde remembered that she was Jamie's little sister from the other day. And so was the loud mouthed red head that had been heckling Brooke when they came in. But who where the two little girls? 

As if reading her mind, Jamie spoke up. "I guess you guys don't know these brats, huh?" 

"Brooke thinks she knows me." Crimson called back, flashing the girl an almost feral smile. Jamie knitted his eyebrows at the girl, before shaking it off. 

"Guys, these are my sisters, Jazz, Crimson, Molly and Sami." Jamie said as he pointed to each girl in turn. 

"And he's Jamie!" Sami piped up, pointing to her brother who was also doubling as her chair. 

"Yeah, and that's Caitie!" Crimson called, making Caitie and Jamie both laugh. 

"Yeah, um, we know Caitie." Tyler told the red head, who rolled her eyes at him. 

"No, really?" 

"Crimson, be nice." Jamie chided his little sister, which earned him shocked looks from both his little sister and his best friend. "What?" 

"You sound like Mommy!" Molly informed him, laughing. 

"I do not!" Jamie protested, looking pitifully at Caitie. "Do I really?" 

"Yes!" Crimson and Jazz sang out together, before cracking up. 

"Well, not exactly like her…your mom's voice is higher then yours is." Caitie told him, laughing at his slightly horrified look. 

"Gee thanks." Jamie groused, leaning back in his chair, before turning to look at his guests, whose expressions were slightly awe-struck. Caitie seemed to notice to, and she lifted her eyebrows at him, as if to ask 'what's wrong with them?'

"Umm…guys? Are you…okay?" Jamie asked, knitting his eyebrows together and looking at them in worry. 

"Uh…yes?" Val was the first one to recover. Before, when she had visited Caitie, Jamie and his younger sisters had been more subdued, worried for the girl. Now that they knew she was going to be alright, they were greatly relieved, an emotion that tended to make them a little…hyper. And loud. And more then a little silly. 

"Oh, I know where their probably is." Caitie piped, waving her hands dismissively. 

"Oh yeah? What?" Jamie wanted to know, lifting his eyebrow. 

"THEY'VE never seen you with your goofball little sisters. I bet they didn't even think you could act like this." On the word "this", Caitie spread her hands as if to indicate the room at large. 

"What? Normal?" Crimson asked.

"Goofy?" Jazz suggested.

"Weird?" Was Molly's suggestion.

"Happy?" Not to be outdone, little Sami had offered her own suggestion. 

"That's it." Caitie agreed with the little girl. 

"That's not true; they've seen me happy before." Jamie nodded his head as if to emphasis his point, turning back to his friends on the EMT squad. "Right?" 

"Ummm…"

"Well…"

"Uhhh…." 

"Not quite THIS happy." 

Jamie turned mock-horrified eyes to his family. "They act like I'm never happy." 

"Point?" Crimson asked, holding her hands out as if to say 'Are you GOING somewhere with this train of thought'? 

"Hush, Crimmie." 

"Bite me, Romeo." 

At this point, Hank couldn't keep his mirth at bay, and was quietly snickering into his hand. Caitie noticed, and rolled her eyes, grinning. "You think this is bad, you should have been here yesterday. They were SINGING then." 

As if she had given them some sort of cue, Crimson, Jazz, Jamie, and even Molly and Sami burst into a rather gleeful rendition of Fuel's "Bad Day". 

@-}--}---

"Well that was…strange." Tyler noted as the foursome made their way away from Caitie's hospital room, the strains of "It's Been Awhile" by Staind drifting after them. 

"I've never seen Jamie act like that before." Hank agreed, shaking his head and grinning a little bit. 

"I've never seen CAITIE act like that!" Brooke piped up, her eyes wide. 

"Hey, Brooke, what was the deal between you and Jamie's little sister?" Val asked, lifting her eyebrow. 

The blonde girl suddenly wouldn't look at her, studying her feet. "What d'ya mean?" 

"You and the red head. You know, she looked about your age…do you know her?" Her older sister asked, eyeing her sister in confusion. 

"Umm…we have…umm…choir together. She…uhh…doesn't like me very much." Brooke muttered, looking down at her shoes. 

"Why?" Tyler asked, curious. Suddenly, Val gasped. 

"Was that the girl that sung the solo at this year's Christmas concert?" Val asked, looking 

at the girl. "The one you tried out for?" 

"Uh yeah." Brooke said, looking down at her feet, like she was embarrassed about something. 

"So, why doesn't she like you?" Val wanted to know. 

"It wasn't my idea." The younger blonde girl muttered, looking down at her feet in what could be taken to be shame. 

"What idea, Brooke?" Val asked, looking at her sister in concern. 

Brooke heaved a sigh of someone who had the world on her shoulders, and pushed a lock of her hair back with a sigh. "Amy and Nicole started some rumor about her…I don't even know what it was, but it eventually got to the point where people thought she was a cannibal." 

"Brooke!" Val sounded shocked, and put her hands on her hips. "Did you and the girls apologize to her?" 

"I didn't know she was Jamie's sister!" Brooke protested, and her older sister sighed, running her fingers through her blonde hair. 

"That is beside the point. You need to go back right now, and tell her you're sorry." Val demanded, stopping short and turning back toward her best friend's room. 

"But Val…" Brooke began, knowing that her sister was right. 

"Come on." Val started off down the hallway, with Brooke trailing along behind her, and Tyler and Hank behind her. 

@-}--}---

Caitie burst into applause as the final notes of the song died down, chuckling. "The Van Tromps you are not, you guys." 

"HEY! I'll have you know that I am a very good singer." Crimson informed her, hands on her hips. "I got the solo in the Christmas pageant." 

Caitie laughed, and nodded, "Yeah, I remember." 

"So do I!" Jamie groaned. "I never want to hear Hark the Herald Angels ever again!" 

"Shut up! I was GOOD!" Crimson put her hands on her hips and glared at her brother, but her eyes sparkled. 

"I didn't say you weren't good, I just said I never wanted to hear it again." The young man told her, laughing as she rolled her eyes. 

"Hey, did you ever find out who started those rumors about you?" Caitie asked, remembering Crimson's major source of annoyance with the "pretty people" from around Christmas. The girl really was too much like her brother, Caitie couldn't help but think. Some of those rumors Jazz told me about were pretty nasty—if it had been me, I would have been a lot more sad-upset, I think. But she just got pissed off—which is what I'm sure is what Jamie would have done too. 

"No, but I have my guesses." Crimson's voice was suddenly low and dangerous. Jazz's snort surprised them—it wasn't in mirth, but in agreement. 

"So do I. And that snotty little Linear brat is at the top of the list." 

"You guys, Brooke wouldn't do something like that." Jamie defended the girl.

"You're just saying that because you've never seen the little brat flounce around school like a friggin' queen." Crimson snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"Yeah, she and her little clique of "pretty people" really hated it that one of US got the solo." Jazz's voice held more malice then Caitie had ever heard from her before. 

"One of "US"?" Jamie asked, making quotes in the air with his fingertips. 

"You know what I mean, Jamie." Crimson informed him, tilting her head back and giving him her patented don't-be-stupid-look. 

Jamie and Caitie exchanged a look, both wincing slightly. Sure, they both had their own run-ins with the "in-crowd", but they hadn't realized that the younger ones went through similar experiences. 

The polite clearing of a throat caught their attention at that point, and, as one, the group turned to face the source. Brooke stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, Val hovering behind her. Jamie saw Crimson roll her eyes out of the corner of his eyes. Caitie tried to suppress a smile at the suddenly familiar stance the redhead struck—arms crossed over her chest, dark eyes daring Brooke to try something. 

"Ummm…" Brooke began, chewing on the bottom of her lip. 

"Brooke had something she'd like to say to you, Constance." Val glared at her little sister. 

"Who the hell is Constance?" Crimson snapped, lifting her eyebrow and glowered at the sisters with her brother's favorite glare. 

"Ummm…" Val trialed off, looking amazingly like Brooke at that moment. "Isn't that…" 

"No." Jazz huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and matching Crimson's glare. 

"Her name's Crimson, Val. Remember?" Caitie couldn't resist the little dig, a small smile playing on her lips as she watched her perfect best friend flounder a bit. It really wasn't funny, but Caitie couldn't keep the little grin off of her face. 

"Oh." Val muttered, looking down at her feet for an instant. However, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, touching Brooke on the shoulder with a firm hand as she did so. "Brooke has something she wants to say to you, Crimson." 

"I'm just dying to hear it." The sarcasm was not lost on either of the Linear sisters. 

Brooke looked down at her feet, scoffing her toe against the tiled floor for a moment, before muttering something under her breath. 

"What was that?" Crimson asked, leaning forward and holding a cupped hand up to her ear. 

"Crimmie, don't be a witch." Jamie ordered the younger girl, but since he was looking at his sister when he said it, he missed Brooke's absurdly grateful look. 

"I'm not being a witch. I couldn't hear her." The red head snapped back, crossing her arms over her chest and looking upset that her brother had reprimanded her. 

"She's got a point." Caitie pointed out. 

"Caitie!" Brooke muttered, shooting a death glare at the girl. 

"What? She DOES." The girl told her, shrugging her shoulders. 

The younger blonde took a deep breath before looking back up at the redhead. "I'm sorry I started those rumors about you. They were mean, and that was wrong of me. I hope you will forgive me." 

Crimson glared at her for a minute, and then shrugged, brushing it off. "Sure. Whatever." 

The girl smirked at her, pushing a lock of red hair out of her eyes. "You're not gonna wanna have like, a sleepover now, are you?"

Jamie couldn't help it; he snorted with laughter at the image of his smartass little sister and Brooke Linear sitting around doing each others hair and gossiping about guys. Caitie and Val both looked at him like he was out of his mind, but he waved his hand in the air as if to tell them to forget it. The two girls exchanged a look of the young man's head before shrugging and chalking it up to a weird Jamie thing. 

@-}--}----

"Okay, what are we doing here again?" Tyler asked Jamie as he and Hank stood on Jamie's porch later that evening. The young man had called them a few hours earlier and asked them to come over for some elusive reason. 

"I need your help." Jamie told them, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

"Yeah, we need all the help we can get!" Jazz's voice floated out of the window, and the three young men looked up to see the girl leaning out of the upstairs window, her dark hair covered by a do rag. "It's a PIT in here, Jamie!" 

"In where?" Hank asked, lifting his eyebrows and looking over at Waite in confusion. 

"Umm…my room." Jamie told them, shifting his feet for a minute, before getting a grip on his emotions and straightening his shoulders. "I need you guys to help me clean it out." 

Tyler and Hank exchanged a confused and slightly suspicious look, before turning back to their friend, their look growing steadily more suspicious as they eyed the smiling young man. 

"Why, may I ask, are you cleaning out your room?" Tyler demanded, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his eyebrows. "And why do you want us to help you?" 

"I'm cleaning my room so Caitie will have somewhere to go tomorrow." Jamie told them firmly, before turning on his heel and heading into the house. 

"Why wouldn't she go to her 

own room?" Hank asked, shrugging at Tyler as he followed the spiky haired young man into the house. 

"Because she's moving in here, right Jamie?" A new voice piped up as a young woman walked into the foyer from the kitchen, a fist full of garbage bags in her hands. Hank blinked owlishly at the girl and swallowed so hard you could see it. 

"Um, hi." He stuttered, running his hand over his hair. 

"Hi." She smiled back at him, tucking a lock of her longish dirty blonde hair behind her ear, her hazel eyes twinkling. Tyler noticed the look his best friend was giving the girl and smirked, catching Jamie's eye and tilting his head to the two. Jamie looked over and grinned, wiggling his eyebrows in almost unholy glee. 

"Hank, Tyler, this is my next door neighbor Sam. Sam, this is Hank and Tyler; I work with them on the EMS squad." Jamie introduced the two, discreetly gesturing toward the stairs. Tyler noticed and nodded, his baby blue eyes sparkling. 

Quickly, the two men headed toward the stairs, grinning secretly at each other. They had seen THAT look on Hank's face before, most notably with Jasmine and Monique. When they were almost halfway up the steps, Jamie stopped and turned around, calling to down to Hank. 

"Yo man, Tyler and I are going to head on up. Will you hang out down here with Sam and help her out?" Jamie asked, waving his hand at Connell to try and keep the young man quiet as he chuckled loudly, turning to walk the rest of the way up the steps. 

"Yeah, sure man." Jamie had to struggle to keep from laughing at the extremely grateful tone in Hank's voice. 

Shaking his head, Jamie headed up after his blond friend, finding him at the top of the steps talking to a young couple. The girl was laughing about something, shaking her head back and forth so that her short blonde hair flipped into her eyes. The fingers of her right hand were laced tightly through those of the tall young man standing next to her, his dark eyes gazing almost adoringly at her. 

Jamie grinned and came to a stop beside his slightly confused looking friend. "Hey man. I guess you've meet Cindy and Ethan? Cindy works part time at Mere's dinner and Ethan's her boyfriend." He explained. 

"Uh…yeah." Jamie could barely hear Tyler over Cindy's laughter. Looking over at the slightly older blonde, he raised an eyebrow. 

"What's so funny, Cindy?" He asked, looking from the smirking girl to his confused friend. It was Ethan that explained it to him however. 

"Tyler thought I was your brother, and Cindy Luhoo here thought it was funny as hell." Ethan poked his girlfriend in the back, making her snicker harder. 

"Why'd you think that?" Jamie asked, slightly confused. "I don't have a brother." 

Tyler looked over at him in shock for a minute, and then pointed at Ethan. "Man, look at him! He looks just like you!" 

Jamie and Ethan studied each other for a minute, before shrugging as one. "So we both have brown eyes and black hair. Big deal." Ethan rumbled in his deep bass voice. 

"Yeah, there's not really THAT much resemblance." Cindy spoke up, her laughter forgotten. She smirked at Tyler, who continued to look back and forth between the two men for a second before shrugging and walking down the hall toward Jamie's room. 

Cindy watched him go for a minute and opened her mouth as if to say, but then seemed to think better of it. Flashing a pretty smile at Jamie, she tugged a little insistently on Ethan's hand. "I'm sorry we can't stay longer, but my shift starts at five."   


"Yeah, and I have a test tomorrow." Ethan groaned, running his fingers through his dark hair. 

"Fun times all around I see." Jamie grinned, making the couple laugh. 

"For real. See ya later!" Cindy called cheerfully, as she and Ethan made their way down the steps. 

"Later!" He called back. 

He was halfway to his bedroom when Cindy's surprised yelp and an embarrassed shriek from Sam reached his ears. He slowed to a stop for a minute, and grinned to himself before heading on toward his bedroom. 

Wasn't any of his business anyway. 

@-}--}---

"Take it easy, Caitie." Jamie ordered the girl as she nearly jumped from the wheelchair the nurse had insisted on wheeling her out in. 

"Who are you, my mother?" Caitie shot back, but smiled to take the sting out of her words. Her friend crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her, a small smile fighting to break free from his lips. 

"You forget—I know what I'm talking about." 

"Oh yes, Mr. EMT, I nearly forgot." The dark haired girl rolled her eyes, but allowed Jamie to help her into the backseat of the waiting car. Genevieve, who was driving, turned around to smile at her and Caitie couldn't help but smile back. 

Leaning back against the seat as Jamie shut the door, Caitie sighed happily, glad to be out of the hospital and glad to be going home. Her new home, as Molly had declared, and Caitie had agreed. Her new home—her 

real home. 

It wasn't as weird as Caitie had thought it was going to be, to think of the Waites' house as her home. She had come to realize it wasn't strange to her because, on some level, Caitie already thought of Jamie's house as her home. It was where she felt safe and loved, wanted. That was what home was to her. 

The opening of the back side door startled her out of her thoughts, and she turned to see Jamie slid into the seat next to her. Flashing him a smile, she was surprised when he reached out and slid his fingers into her good hand. Surprised, and more then a little pleased. Squeezing his fingers, Caitie couldn't keep the excited smile from pulling at her features. 

It was time to go home. 


End file.
